A recent user satisfaction survey conducted in the US resulted in Yahoo! beating out its search engine rival Google.

In the University of Michigan's American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ASCI), Yahoo! gained three points to end up being rated 79 out of 100.

Google on the other hand slipped three points from last year to end up with a score of 78, marking the first time it has slipped below a rating of 80 since 2002.

Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which sponsored the survey, said: "Even more important than Yahoo's first lead over Google is the trend of their scores moving in opposite directions.

"Since the ACSI is a leading indicator of financial performance on the macro scale and at the company level, we may see a real turnaround for Yahoo! in the next year."

The website with the largest increase in customer satisfaction this year was Ask.com, which garnered a rating of 75.

AOL.com was the website that saw the biggest fall in customer satisfaction, sliding more than nine percent to 67.

The ASCI measures the performance of over 200 companies annually.