March internet viewing figures show that Google is still the most popular site among UK surfers, with 27.3 million page visits.

The next most popular sites were Microsoft's portfolio and eBay, with 26.8 and 22 million visitors respectively.

The largest rise in viewing was on the BSkyB website following a nationwide advertising campaign.

Overall web traffic on the top 20 sites rose by around five per cent, but social networking sites showed much higher growth.

New teenage community site Tagged showed extraordinary growth at 226 per cent, and established community Facebook was up nearly 40 per cent.

The figures are based solely on home and corporate users and exclude internet cafés and mobile devices.