Yahoo has been a big deal online for a long time now, and has a lot of people making tracks to the site for a variety of purposes. Free Web-based email, news, sports, even search functions are on hand to make a stay at Yahoo full of possibilities. But recent news suggests that Yahoo's status as a popular destination online may even be bigger than some thought, as a new report notes that Yahoo reached the top of the heap for websites on desktop PCs, and not for the first time in the recent past.

The word from comScore (News - Alert) makes it clear: Yahoo had over 195 million unique visitors arrive at the site via desktop computer in December, a number that's sufficiently large to drive it ahead of Microsoft, Facebook (News - Alert) and even Google. That by itself is an impressively large number, but it only gets better when the size of the total desktop audience is considered. The total desktop audience is said to be over 224 million total users, which means that Yahoo, in December, counted most of the entire desktop audience to its credit.

Google (News - Alert) was just barely edged out here, counting just over 192 million users to its credit, followed by Microsoft at 175 million. Yahoo had previously taken the number one slot in July 2013, and reportedly, has held onto the number one slot ever since. While Yahoo was the biggest name in desktop traffic, Facebook took the number one slot in social media, while Amazon took top honors in e-commerce.

But one particular point to note in the comScore listings is that said listings don't include mobile devices. It's been known for some time now that PCs are on the decline, with smartphones and tablets rising up to take a lot of that market share. While we're not exactly in the “post-PC era” that gets talked about every so often, it's clear we're in an era where the PC's dominance is not what it once was. We may never live in a world without PCs, but being tops in the PC market doesn't mean what it once did. Even comScore's own numbers bear that point out; while the total desktop market was 224.057 million in December 2013, in July 2013, that number was 225.539 million. Not exactly a drastic plummet, but certainly a loss, and the kind of loss that doesn't bode well at all for the long-term health of the desktop market.

Yahoo's been the top of the heap in desktops for some time now, and reports suggest it's been making clear advances into mobile devices as well. This is an area that Yahoo will have to really focus on to maintain its dominance. While it's tops in desktop, desktop is a market on the decline, so being prepared to straddle that boundary between desktop and mobile will likely be advantageous in the long run. Several key purchases like Hitpost and Aviate in the last several months are likely to help, and may be just what Yahoo needs to keep the momentum alive.