Google Inc was the most popular search engine used for online purchases during the December shopping period, according to a report from Hitwise, an Internet measurement company.

Hitwise said that 11.1% of all online visits relating to shopping started with Google in December, representing a 28% increase from the previous year.

Auction site eBay Inc, retailer Amazon.com, Google's Froogle and Shopzilla's BizRate were the four most popular shopping sites originating in December from Google, representing 18.1% of the retailer traffic generated.

Search engines Yahoo! Search and Microsoft Corp's MSN Search, generated 4.05% and 0.79% of visits to shopping sites, respectively, during the period. Hitwise reported that 18.3% of visits to classified and shopping web sites originated with search engines.

Hitwise also revealed that eBay, the most visited online shopping site, generated over 13% of retail traffic to shopping sites during December, while Amazon.com generated 0.75% of visits to other online retailers.

Music download sites reached their highest number of visitors on Christmas Day, increasing 172% from the previous year, with iTunes taking 39% of visits. Searches containing the word 'iPod' increased 175% from the previous year, during the holiday season.