Tiago Bianchi
Research expert covering internet & gaming in Latin America and Spain
Top websites worldwide - statistics & facts
Since its creation, websites have been the backbone of the World Wide Web, channeling online services and content to anyone with a connected device. As the number of online destinations grew, search engines became an integral part of the internet’s structure and functioning. While the internet spread and communication platforms became mainstream, social media platforms emerged as the means for online exchange, turning into some of the most visited domains on the web due to their engagement potential. But as the tides keep turning even among the most established internet companies, online content might be on the verge of another change, as online news scrambles for survival and the looming presence of artificial intelligence (AI) already draws its first stakes on how we visit the web.
With social media working as the front door to the web for most internet users, Facebook became the biggest and first social platform to reach a global scale, maintaining its top spot with an average monthly traffic of over 16.6 billion average visits to its main URL, and amassing more than three billion monthly active users (MAU). The constant search of both social media and online search websites also places these platforms among the world’s most popular search queries, proving their unquestionable presence on the online landscape.
The recent shutdown of websites like Vice.com and Buzzfeednews.com and the decline in social media traffic to news sites feeds the discussions on the profitability of these outlets’ subscriptions, thus calling questionings of whether social media should help sustain the outlets that often set the agenda of online discussion on their platforms. As the impact of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT starts swelling over the internet landscape, news of Google’s deal for licensing content from Reddit to train AI models suggests that not only news portals, but the very fabric of the internet as we know it is likely to go through another structural transformation.
Social and search monopolies
Standing over billionaire online advertising revenues, search engines are an elemental part of the online experience, with Google being a synonym for the simple act of searching for information online. The search tool is omnipresent in any list of most visited websites worldwide, seeing over 80 billion average visitors to its main URL and millions to its localized domains. Acquired by Google back in 2006, online video platform YouTube secured its spot among the world’s most visited domains, being the most popular and engaging network website on all devices and online platform categories.With social media working as the front door to the web for most internet users, Facebook became the biggest and first social platform to reach a global scale, maintaining its top spot with an average monthly traffic of over 16.6 billion average visits to its main URL, and amassing more than three billion monthly active users (MAU). The constant search of both social media and online search websites also places these platforms among the world’s most popular search queries, proving their unquestionable presence on the online landscape.
As online news goes down, up goes AI
While e-commerce websites make their fortunes via retail sales and distribution, producing online content remains a rather complicated and forever-changing business model. Online media feeds an important fraction of social and search platforms’ substance, but its material is processed and monetized under the same currents of user-generated content by big tech companies. And as news and journalism outlets struggle within their structure, their dependence on online platforms increases, despite the growing damages to their traffic and profitability.The recent shutdown of websites like Vice.com and Buzzfeednews.com and the decline in social media traffic to news sites feeds the discussions on the profitability of these outlets’ subscriptions, thus calling questionings of whether social media should help sustain the outlets that often set the agenda of online discussion on their platforms. As the impact of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT starts swelling over the internet landscape, news of Google’s deal for licensing content from Reddit to train AI models suggests that not only news portals, but the very fabric of the internet as we know it is likely to go through another structural transformation.
