Yahoo raised a few eyebrows yesterday when ComScore reported that its home page drew more hits than that of Google’s, leading some to speculate that it might finally be winning over new users after years in the doldrums. That could be so – but then again, could these stats be misleading us? After all ComScore’s stats are strictly related to one platform only, the PC, and completely ignore the most important battlefield in modern day computing – mobile.

What with Smartphones and tablets excluded from ComScore’s final tally, it’s impossible to say just how well Yahoo stacks up against Google when it comes to mobile hits. We’ll find out soon enough when ComScore releases its combined numbers from its soon-to-released multi-platform rankings, which will include traffic from both mobiles and regular computers. But it’s unlikely to bring much good news to Yahoo, given the way in which internet users have been accelerating towards mobile devices. Last September 2012, US traffic from PCs to search engines fell for the first time in its history, while mobile traffic continues to soar.

The problem for Yahoo is that, despite all of its efforts and acquisitions to embrace mobile, the company just doesn’t come anywhere close to Google in that particular race. How many apps does Yahoo have that people actually use? I can’t think of many, whereas any Android device is littered with extremely useful Google apps, such as Gmail, Google Maps, Waze and others. Google also has a significant advantage in that it owns Android, which gives it an entire mobile operating system at its behest – and more crucially allows it to set itself as the default search engine on any Android device that’s ever made (don’t forget that Android dominates US mobile traffic).

So while Yahoo might be pleased that it’s finally managed to inch ahead of Google when it comes to laptops and desktops, it’ll be concerned that it’s got some distance to go before it can even hope to catch up on mobile. Google on the one hand will be quite satisfied to see the trade-off between less PC visits and more mobile users – meanwhile Yahoo and Marissa Meyer will no doubt be frantically trying to work out how they can transition the company’s websites and services to mobile devices.

One thing to note is that it’s not immediately clear just how far mobile web usage has eaten into the desktop’s space. What we do know is that desktop and laptop sales are falling fast, while mobile device sales are skyrocketing and likely to surpass the former in the next couple of years. As for which platform is leading the race when it comes to total web traffic, that’s actually a bit of a mystery, although it’s one that’s finally set to be revealed when ComScore finally announces its multi-platform rankings.