by Saleem Khan, CBC News Online

With everything that Google does, it raises two questions: "How did we ever live our lives before Google?" (particularly relevant to anyone born in the late 1980s or later) and "How is Google and its competition faring?"

Life before Google was harsh. [There's something innately schadenfreude-inspiring about the fact that the link is to a competing service, isn't there?]

After Google, the competition heated up. In a study of U.S. site traffic rankings in March 2007 [20 kB PDF] based on a panel of about 500 people, U.K firm M:Metrics Inc. confirmed what most of us suspected: Google is No. 1.

But what's interesting about the results is that if Microsoft was able to integrate its online properties (MSN.com, Live.com and eponymous Microsoft.com) under one brand, it would displace the internet giant for the top spot.

By the numbers:

1. Google.com             1,894,143
2. Yahoo.com              1,315,801
3. MSN.com                   903,158
4. Microsoft.com           734,664
5. Live.com                  697,589
6. Go.com                     571,469
7. CNN.com                  509,772
8. Weather.com             460,564
9. MySpace.com             435,910
10. Passport.net              434,050