Facebook May Have the Traffic, But Google Visitors Worth More
Posted on 23. Mar, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features
Last week it was announced that Facebook had overtaken Google Search as the most heavily trafficked site on the web. While this does not include Google’s other offerings – only Search – it still means that Facebook is going to be a major competitor against Google in the future. I would expect the companies to be competing on several different fronts and along with Microsoft’s push of Bing with no abandon for how much they spend on marketing Google is beginning to enter a phase where they can expect rivals on all fronts.
Something that many people may not realize is how much every user Google gets to their site that they covet because of how much every single visitor is worth:
Google: $18.44 per unique
AOL: $12
Yahoo: $6
Microsoft: $4.42
Facebook: $3.09
Twitter: $0.62.
So although Facebook has surpassed Google Search, it isn’t exactly a day of reckoning. Google’s revenue in terms of traffic to its sites far outweighs any other web property and Facebook isn’t even close. This is because Facebook doesn’t really have a solid revenue model yet, plus the fact that their users are not interested in creepy ads that take personal data from profiles. Actually, if you think about it, social media on this graph is not doing very well in terms of revenue per user.
Sure, Twitter has yet to really monetize their site, citing that they want to focus on their core business first. But what is their core business? Whatever it is it should probably include making some money. AOL is doing surprisingly well here, because somehow their long standing subscription model that still seems to work, while Microsoft and Yahoo continues to push their portals as media hubs which seem to be doing them well.
And Google? Well, let’s not be surprised here why they want to push Android, Chrome browser and Chrome OS. The more that they do that, the more this number will go up. The resulting gap between them and their competitors will continue to widen, but that’s with the consideration that social media can’t find a way to fight back and find innovative ways to make money on their sites – all while trying not to fall apart like MySpace.
2 Responses to “Facebook May Have the Traffic, But Google Visitors Worth More”
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Kapauldo
25. Mar, 2010
I did a similar analysis about a year ago, and I found a 17X multiple, so I think Facebook has improved.
http://www.kapauldo.com/?p=342
Daniel Cawrey
25. Mar, 2010
Thanks for the info. I would agree with your analysis, and I think that the biggest problem with Facebook (and other social media sites for that matter) is that it is focuses on people. There is a challenge to try to set up an advertising model around that. Google organizes all information, many of it which can be marketed.