Question: What are the most popular websites on the Web?
The most popular websites on the Web generate a massive amount of traffic. They are the ones that many people visit on a daily basis, and since there are at least six billion people online according to the latest statistics, that’s a lot of traffic!
How do you find out what these popular websites are? Where do you go to see what everyone else is visiting?
There are a number of ways you can find out what the most popular websites are on the Web, either en masse or by niche.
Most Popular Sites Worldwide
You can get a quick glimpse of what the most popular sites are worldwide from a number of reputable statistics and measurement websites, including:
- Alexa: offers a list of the 500 most popular sites worldwide.
- Comscore offers frequent press releases concerning the most popular websites in various countries around the world, as does Hitwise.
- Quantcast not only shows you the most popular websites in the world, they also tell you who is likely to visit those sites.
- Nielsen has lists for both global websites and U.S. centered sites.
Most Popular Sites by Topic and Category
There are many sites (such as social bookmarking sites) that offer nicely organized lists of the most popular websites in any given topic, as well as measurement organizations that measure specific niches.
- Popurls: Daily snapshots of the most popular sites and content on various websites; works best if you just want recent data.
- Using Stumbleupon’s Most Popular tags page, you can get a good idea of what other people have been looking at in the short-term or long-term.
- Using the drop-down menu for time (day, month, or all time), you can see what the most popular videos are at YouTube.