Part of Fox's rise,
ign.com and new consoles

Spurred by the popularity of MySpace, News Corp. sites have overtaken Yahoo sites as the most viewed by U.S. Internet users, according to new industry data cited by News Corp. on Tuesday.

Citing comScore Media Metrix data, News Corp.'s Fox Interactive unit said its total U.S. pageviews jumped to 39.5 million in November from 38.7 million in October, reports Reuters. Meanwhile, Yahoo's pageviews fell to 38.1 million in November from 41.6 million in October, and Microsoft ranked third, with pageviews falling to 17.9 million in November from 19.3 million the previous month.

However, Yahoo counters that it has a larger audience (unique visitors as opposed to pageviews), serves more ads, and its visitors spend more time on its sites. Its fewer pageviews are the result of shifting to Web 2.0 technology, including the use of AJAX, which spawns fewer individual web pages, Yahoo said.

Moreover, Fox's gaming site IGN.com received a large spike in traffic due to new gaming console releases in November.