According to the most recent information revealed by online measurement service Hitwise, Facebook has toppled Google to become ‘the most visited site of the week’ in the US – a ranking that Google had consistently been holding since 2007. The last time that Google missed the most popular site slot was in September 2007, when it was overthrown by MySpace.

Going by the Hitwise statistics, Facebook – which had earlier threatened Google’s top spot on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and the March 6-7 weekend – accounted for 7.07 percent of the Web visits during the week ending March 13; thereby reporting marginally higher numbers that Google’s 7.03 percent.

Elaborating further, Heather Dougherty, the Hitwise research director, said in a blog post: “The market share of visits to Facebook. com increased 185 per cent last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google. com increased nine per cent during the same time frame.”

As Hitwise is only one measure of Web traffic, what still remains to be seen is whether other Web metrics too will reveal a similar result – indicating Facebook right on top, instead of Google.

However, another Web traffic measure, Compete. com, still shows Google as the most visited site - with nearly 147 million unique monthly visitors in January; followed closely by Facebook’s 133 million unique monthly visitors.