NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Traffic to tax Web sites spiked in the first week of February as Internet users kicked off an early start to the tax season, according to Web tracking firm Nielsen//NetRatings.

About 29 tax sites attracted 14.1 million unique users, or about 11 percent of Web surfers, in the week ended Feb. 5, up 26 percent from the same period last year, Nielsen//NetRatings said.

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Weekly traffic to tax sites peaked at 12.5 million users last year, and that wasn't reached until the final crunch week leading up to the April 15 filing deadline.

"Traffic to tax Web sites experienced substantial growth during the first week in February, suggesting that people who use online tax resources don't wait until the last minute to tackle their taxes," Heather Dougherty, senior analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, said in a statement accompanying the findings.

Tax sites also saw their traffic surge week-over-week, with H&R Block's (Research) site leading the pack of fastest-growing sites, the findings show. Traffic to the tax preparer's site skyrocketed 84 percent from the previous week to 2.3 million visitors.

Other sites posting rapid week-over-week growth include Taxcut.com, whose traffic jumped 81 percent to 937,000 users; IRS.com, whose traffic soared 41 percent to 512,000; and TaxAct.com, which posted a 41 percent rise in traffic to 1.1 million visitors.

Traffic to Intuit's (Research) site didn't grow at as rapid a clip as the other major sites, but the provider of tax software attracted the most visitors with 3.6 million users, up 37 percent from the week before.

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