A Net record: 1 billion page views per day

The Internet reached an important milestone during the month of October when an average of one billion hits per day were recorded in the United States.

The latest report from online measurement service Media Metrix, which tracks cyber traffic at home and at work, recorded 32.2 billion page views in October. That traffic report, which was a record, was up 49 percent from the same period last year.

Overall, the number of people getting on to the Net remains steady. Media Metrix records 63.9 million unique users for October. That represents a 12.5 percent increase year over year. However, the number of people accessing the Internet from both at home and at work is on the rise with a 40 percent increase over a year ago.

America Online, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Lycos and Go Network continue their reign as the top five properties on the Web. When looking at individual sites, Netscape.com comes in at number five and Lycos and Go.com drop to numbers 10 and 7, respectively.

Media Metrix's list of top 50 Web sites features a few new URLs since September. Search engine Directhit.com and direct marketing site Smartbotpro.net made their debuts on the list. After ranking as the number eight Internet directory in September, the At Hand Network saw its traffic increase by 2.4 million and it now ranks as the 47th most visited property overall.

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