The majority of traffic generated by the top 25 US web properties comes from outside the country, according to a new study demonstrating how global the internet has become.

In 1996, Americans accounted around 65 per cent of internet users, but over the last ten years this figure has dropped considerably and is now at around 25 per cent, the research from comScore Networks found.

Each of the top five online companies in the US, Yahoo!, Time Warner, Microsoft, Google and eBay, are now reported to get the majority of their traffic from abroad.

In addition, the big three of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! were all found to be relying on foreign internet users to provide at least three-quarters of their sites' usage.

The findings of the study, researchers suggest are "indicative of what a truly global medium the internet has become".

Microsoft recently launched its own search engine in an attempt to challenge the market dominance of Yahoo! and market leader Google.