Yahoo! sites were the most visited by people in the US during February, a new report has revealed.

The search engine organization received 137 million visitors, compared to Google’s 136 million and Microsoft’s 118 million, analysis by comScore has revealed.

Among the research firm’s findings was that the month saw a rise in the amount of traffic to websites selling gifts and greetings cards, which it attributed to Valentine’s Day.

The fact that the top three most-visited websites are search engines could be considered to show the importance of such portals in helping users find the information they need online.

A recent report by JupiterResearch suggested that many smaller firms in the US are recognizing the value of ranking highly within search engines, predicting that such businesses will spend around $70 billion on marketing online by 2012.

Sonal Gandhi, analyst and lead author of the study, commented that an increasing number of companies use the internet to search for and research the products they need to purchase.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.