A Billion Websites In The Naked City

And yet, the vast majority of the traffic goes to the top 100 or so properties.

There are over 1.1 billion websites on the internet, but the vast majority of all traffic actually goes to a very select list of them. Google.com, for example, has an astounding 28 billion visits per month. The next closest is also a Google-owned property, Youtube.com, which brings in 20.5 billion visits.

This just illustrates just how long the long tail of websites is and how many different elements are out there to be explored. Cyberspace has never been a more apt description. The top 100 properties see the vast majority of traffic while the remaining 1.0999 billion sites/properties have relatively small volume of visitors.

Looking at the infographic and the properties that are listed is a really interesting visual into our world.

  • Google takes the top spot with the aforementioned Google, Youtube, Blogger, etc.
  • Facebook and Instagram represent a formidable combination
  • Yahoo, for all its troubles, still is listed as the #5 site online
  • News sites from all different angles have a significant presence with CNN (#22), HuffPo (#49), NY Times (#31), Wash Post (#54), along with Breitbart (#45), Fox News (#50) to name a few.

Click through below to see the original size of the infographic.

Internet Time Capsule

Any Baio over at Waxy dug up an article and press kit from the failed DEN.net launch back in 1999. But the super cool thing he also dug up was the “Top 100 Sites of 1999” (Direct link to PDF of article). Just an amazing list of all the sites that were big in the first wave of the online revolution. I’m proud to say that at the time that article was published (November 1999), I was employed at Tripod, the #7 site on that top 100 list.