HitWise is reporting that for the week ending March 13, Facebook overtook Google as the site to get the most US visits.  Facebook also reached the top spot for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, when people logged on to send best wishes to relatives. Last time we suggested that the next time Facebook took the number one spot, it would be permanent, and if the Hitwise data is accurate, this could be a sustained lead.

Facebook also was #1 for the weekend of March 6th and 7th, which shows that they are steadily climbing in terms of total number of page views and visitors, and their rate of growth is something Google is most certainly fearing.  The share of visits to Facebook.com for this week has increased 185% over the same week last year, while Google increased only 9% in the same time. Facebook and Google accounted for 14% of all US internet visits last week.

Shown below is a graph provided by HitWise which demonstrates Facebook’s meteoric rise in visits over the last year.  With over 400 million users and growing, Facebook is quickly becoming the prime destination for many users of the web.  While Google is used for search, Facebook is the main tool used to communicate with friends, and more recently, to play games.