Yahoo!'s attempts to shift users away from Yahoo! Photos towards its Flickr service is paying off, after Flickr was revealed to be the second most popular photo-sharing site in the US.According to the latest report from online intelligence firm Hitwise, Flickr traffic has boomed in recent weeks, increasing by almost 40 per cent.
Yahoo! has started including Flickr images in its search results and it seems the move has contributed to the recent traffic surge.
The number one photo-sharing site in the States is still Photobucket, securing a 43.5 per cent market share.
But Flickr has leapfrogged Yahoo! photos into second place, with Hitwise's results showing it held a 6.42 per cent share and grew 38 per cent in the four weeks ending July 7th.
Back in March, Flickr was behind Yahoo! Photos in the rankings, but since the search giant started to close down Yahoo! Photos and include Flickr images on Yahoo! Image Search the turnaround has been marked.
Hitwise revealed that Yahoo! Image Search overtook Google as the biggest driver of traffic for Flickr, as it was responsible for 18 per cent of the site's traffic.
Flickr also ranks behind Photobucket in the UK market share, holding around ten per cent of total searches.
Hitwise research director LeAnn Prescott wrote in her blog this week: "Expect it [Flickr] to keep growing both here and abroad.
"It is worth noting that Flickr has a truly global footprint and has a greater share of the photography category in other markets."
