Tag Archives: Hitwise
Facebook Overtakes Google in Traffic
Posted on 17. Mar, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
1 Comments
For as long as Google has been around, it has been a very popular site and as long as I can remember it has been the top ranking site in the world. That’s no surprise seeing as how they offer the best search functionality of any engine out there. Most people need a starting point when they are on the web, and search is the way to go for that.
But Facebook has been coming up in Google’s rearview mirror, and according to Hitwise, has overtaken Google as the most heavily trafficked site on the web (albeit slightly). Take a look at the following graph:
You can see that Facebook a year ago was not even close to comparing to Google’s share of traffic. Now the two together combine for over 14% of total web traffic.
But the search engine giant has been eclipsed before. According to Google Blogoscoped, MySpace passed by Google for a time in 2007. I know that’s hard to believe now seeing as how MySpace has been on a path of decline, but this tidbit is interesting to note because many MySpace users have migrated to Facebook, resulting in a slow exodus that has resulted in the traffic trend that we are seeing today.
Keep in mind that this is Facebook versus Google’s main search page, not the plethora of other services that Google offers like Gmail, Maps and Docs. I also wonder how much of a factor the recent introduction of Google’s real time search feature has contributed to the inflow of internet users to Facebook – many of them signing up and becoming regular users of the site.
