14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has been seeing big growth in user numbers and visitors month after month but how does it stack up to the established Internet giants? comScore has released its latest Top 50 US Web Properties and the numbers show that the big three – four if you include AOL – are staying put, with Google leading, followed closely by Yahoo and trailed by Microsoft. The only real surprise, if you can call it that, is Facebook, which has managed to enter the top five for the first time.
“Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in July with nearly 158 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 156.5 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 129 million visitors. Facebook.com moved up again in the rankings to #5, marking its highest-ever ranking. Answers.com Sites ascended 5 spots to #26 with 28.4 million visitors. Gorilla Nation jumped 4 positions to #31, while Twitter moved up the rankings to the #42 position with 20.1 million visitors,” the study says [PDF].
While it's not the site to see the biggest growth, considering its size, Facebook's rise is nothing but spectacular as the social network gained 11 places in one year, coming from 39 million unique visitors in July 2008, which placed it at number 16 in the top, to more than double that last month, with close to 88 million. Perhaps even more symbolic is the fact that Facebook is actually replacing Fox Interactive Media, which is now at number 6 with FIM being MySpace's parent company and its audience being made up of mostly users of the increasingly untrendy social network.
Other interesting movements in the top include Twitter, the hot microblogging service, which made it to the Top 50 for the first time, coming in at number 42 with around 21 million visitors. In Twitter's case though these numbers may be grossly underreported as many Twitter users don't visit the site but use third-party apps to connect. Open source is also having a good year, with Wordpress.com at number 29, up from 38, and Mozilla at 30, up from last year's 42.
Here's the top 10 of the most visited web destinations:
1. Google Sites 2. Yahoo! Sites 3. Microsoft Sites 4. AOL LLC 5. FACEBOOK.COM 6. Fox Interactive Media 7. Ask Network 8. eBay 9. Amazon Sites 10. Wikimedia Foundation Sites