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No changes in ranking seem imminent - Google Reader was actually closer to catching Bloglines ten months ago than it is now.  Still, new Hitwise data confirms that these are the top two RSS readers, and in a 12-month comparison, Google's service is gaining ground.

 Hitwise's Stats On Google Reader, Bloglines
(Photo Credit: Hitwise)

Heather Hopkins piles on the statistics, writing, "A year ago, Bloglines attracted twice the share of US Internet visits compared with Google Reader.  The gap has closed to 40% in the week to 17th May 2008.  Last week, Bloglines ranked 21st among Blogs and Personal Websites and Google Reader ranked 32nd.  A year ago, those sites ranked 45th and 118th.  Share of US Internet visits to Bloglines have increased 158% in the past year and visits to Google Reader are up 267%."

This information has to be a little disappointing to Ask, which owns Bloglines.  While Google Reader has received relatively little attention from its corporate owner, Bloglines benefited from a major update just two months ago.  Also, even if the Bloglines Team was a bit sluggish in responding to an outage, Google Reader's crew seems more likely to ignore criticism.

In any event, Hopkins found that the two sites seem to be serving different audiences.  "Google Reader sent 61% more visits to News and Media websites than Bloglines," she reports.  Bloglines instead sent more visits to the "Photography" and "Shopping and Classifieds" categories.

It should be interesting to see how this slow-motion race continues.