Sports & Entertainment
Facebook obliterates rivals in Google list of top sites
  • | PCMag | May 29, 2010 11:50 AM

Google has begun making available traffic numbers from its DoubleClick Ad Planner to the public traffic, and the data lends weight to the rumors that this Facebook site is a big thing.

The social network monster has the most unique visitors, but its page view numbers – 570 billion – are what really dwarf every other site on the Web, including Yahoo, which Facebook tops by 500 billion page views . Facebook was followed by Yahoo and Microsoft's Live online services in the two and three spots, with 70 billion and 39 billion, respectively. In number of unique visitors, the competition is a bit closer, showing Facebook with 540 million users, Yahoo with 490 million, and Microsoft Live with 370 million.

The list of the top 1,000 sites is here.

Google published the list as part of an effort to step up display ad sales, which don't enjoy the same leadership position as its search ads. A comScore market research report from May 13 summarizes the market as follows: "Popular social networking site Facebook.com led all online publishers during Q1 with 176 billion display ad impressions, representing 16.2 percent market share. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 132 billion impressions (12.1 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 60 billion impressions (5.5 percent) and Fox Interactive Media with 53 billion impressions (4.9 percent)."

Google was even behind AOL's 2.9 percent and 32 billion impressions, with 2.4 percent and 26 billion, comScore found.

In addition to page views and unique visitors, the list indicates the sites' category, percent worldwide internet audience reach, and whether or not the site includes advertising. According to the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog, "Our goal with the Top 1000 Sites and other recent updates is to deliver new tools for greater planning efficiency and data to make more informed advertising decisions."

The company's AdSense blog also notes a targeting tool that will show advertisers which of the top sites their ads appear on. But the blog also warns that not all of the top 1000 sites are part of the Google Content Network, and that only ads on those sites will appear.

The DoubleClick numbers don't include those for Google search or its Gmail webmail service, since they're not display ad targets. But the Google-owned Blogspot service is included, at number 7 with 230 million users and 3.3 billion page views. Rounding out the top ten Web sites on earth were the notably ad-free Wikipedia at number 4, with 310 million visitors and 7.9 billion page views; MSN.com, with 280 million and 11 billion; Microsoft.com with 230 million and 3.3 billion; Chinese search engine Baidu with 230 million and 27 billion page views; Chinese portal and email provider qq.com, with 170 million and 25 billion; and at number ten, Firefox maker Mozilla, with 140 million users and 2 billion page views.

The top 1000 list will be published monthly, and you can search for individual websites' profiles for more detailed traffic analysis. The tools are available at google.com/adplanner.

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