Online search giant Google today introduced new features to its social networking site, Orkut, providing users more control over data sharing even as it lost the No. 1 ranking in India to global competitor Facebook.

Orkut will now allow users to define and customise group settings. This means that users can choose if they want certain content to be viewed only by a specific group of people.

"Orkut is continuing down the path of innovation with a complete transformation in product DNA that began just last year. We've created this new functionality to give Orkut users more privacy and control over how they share content," Google Product Director Victor Ribeiro said in a statement.

These changes let users connect with social groups and they will want to interact even more now that they have more control over who has access to their updates than ever before, he added.

Even though Google enjoys the status of being the most popular search engine globally, the same hasn't been the case for Orkut.

India was one of the few countries where Orkut enjoyed the top spot amongst social networking websites. However, Facebook jumped to first rank in terms of site traffic in July this year, according to research firm comScore.

While traffic to Facebook increased 179 per cent in July compared to the year ago period at 20.9 million visitors, Orkut registered a mere 16 per cent growth to 19.9 million visitors.

Facebook had announced that it has 500 million users globally, while Orkut has 85 million users on a 30-day basis (users who access Orkut once in at least 30 days).

According to comScore, more than 33 million Internet users (aged 15 and older) in India visited social networking sites in July.

This makes India the seventh largest market worldwide for social networking after the US, China, Germany, Russia, Brazil and the UK.

"The social networking phenomenon continues to gain steam worldwide and India represents one of the fastest growing markets at the moment," comScore Executive Vice-President (Asia-Pacific) Will Hodgman said.

Orkut now faces a formidable foe in Facebook. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company had recently made announcements to set up an office in Hyderabad and has made key appointments to tap the Indian market.