Facebook generates more website visitors than Google

[the_poet]

According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites. Being a member of Facebook involves having friends and family share Web links to interesting news stories, photos, videos and Internet sites. This "friend-casting" of information has helped propel Facebook into a major force in directing traffic around the Web.This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world.

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[andr69]

I can't believe it! Perhaps the uathor of this article is not serious - how can Facebook outrun Google?

 

[Rom]

Two letters - B S

 

[webmasterinfo]

lol pretty amazing if true

 

[RLW]

I dont think its that hard to believe.

Most people with a Facebook account log on at least once a day. Some people are on it constantly posting status updates and others go on several times a day.

But you only go to Google if you are looking for something and don't know where to find it.

I personally don't use web searching that much. I usually know exactly where to find the information I need and I'll head straight there - for example i'll go to straight to wikipedia.org or php.net.

 

[Gerrit]

I doubt how long Facebook will last before the hype is over and it vanishes into obscurity. I remember my teenage years when MSN Groups and MSN Messenger were the big thing, now almost nobody uses MSN Groups anymore. Then MySpace became the big hype but other than beginning artists wishing to have a free way to promote their music it has passed its glory days as well and a lot of MySpace junkies moved to Facebook (then we're not talking about Friendster.com, Orkut which is still nr 1 in some Latin American countries, VKOntakte which in Russia is much bigger than Facebook, ...). Twitter is now the next big thing ...

Conclusion: none of those hypes lasts forever, and they all seem much more short-lived when looking at it retrospectively. Due to constantly offering new services (webmail, browser, translation tools, etc) Google is probably likely to not be overpowered by competitors within their own field. Facebook and this type of networking sites are very often overpowered in popularity before they realise it because the idea is so easy to copy and new hypes come and go so rapidly...

If one insists on profile websites, I'd say MySpace is the more useful one due to allowing HTML code to personalise the page, and other than that it pretty much offers all that Facebook offers as well.

Personally, I got bored of those sites a bit too quickly, to the extend that I didn't even try Twitter.

 

[GreenGambler]

I here ya Gerrit, seems like a new social site gets hyped up every year. It's hard to keep up really. To be honest, I just joined Facebook like last month.. LOL and now check it like every hour.. hahaha.. I havn't Twittered yet.. LOL lord I"m so behind the times, but then who really can keep up..

 

[Gerrit]

I have tried several of those networking sites but get bored too easy with them. Email may be old school but still my prefered choice. So basically I haven't signed in to any network site in many months and don't even remember which of those sites I signed up for The one thing I can remember is that most of them, which means unless it was a theme specific networking site centered around one subject, were quite similar to the extend that the diffferences behind MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and all that jazz were too small to really understand why people move from one network to another or want an account with several of those sites. It's all pretty similar and it's not so hard to copy the idea - hence why I doubt Facebook will still be the big thing in a few years time. In 5 years time there's probably been as many new hypes and then people will say "does anyone remember back in our young days people used a site called Facebook?"

 

[megamoldy]

I'd be very surprised if true. Just as an example, my parents who are ancient use google, neither want to know about facebook. Maybe they might win, in pageviews...

 

[Robin]

Facebook gets repeated users and Google gets new users.

 

[mrjohn]

To be clear, it says Facebook is the primary source of visitors to MSN and Yahoo, correct?

What does every website that sucks ass, like Yahoo and MSN, get rebranded as a "portal"? Portal is clearly the Swahili word for "failed search engine".

So, Facebook is the primary source of visitors to sites that suck too bad to be primary destinations. Can't wait until Facebook is declared a portal -- I do hear FB is working on a search engine.

 

[the_poet]

It seems Facebook is working on several projects: first of all, an email service.

 

[enlytend]

Compete is a trusted source of competitive web marketing information - their data is good.

Here's what they actually said:

15 percent of traffic to major Web portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL came from Facebook and MySpace. The lion's share of that traffic, 13 percent came from Facebook.

Google, which has profited handsomely from directing Web surfers to their destinations during the past decade, was third with 7 percent

and

Google accounted for 21.3 percent of referrals to sites catering to movie fans, but Facebook was second with 12.4 percent.

Whether your parents use Facebook or not (and a surprising number of "older" people do), or whether you like Yahoo/MSN or not (they ARE portals - unlike Google, in addition to the search features, they're sites with categorized areas of interest that refer people to other websites) if you are promoting a website and ignore information like this you're just sticking your head in the sand.

The approx 133 million unique monthly visitors to Facebook are using Bing - now the default search on Facebook.

 

[Datalife]

I believe the report. Many Facebook girls are hot. My friend spends all his time there trying to hook up with a hot chick...

 

[jerinjames]

That is am amazing achievement if that is true. Even if its just hype its great news for Facebook.
Also Google is treading downhill on popularity by simply forcing their apps on anybody who has a Gmail or Google account. Case in point, the latest fiasco Buzz and er... Google Wave. Whatever happened to their unofficial motto "Don't be Evil"?

Anyway, cheers Facebook.

 

[lll]

i dont go on (and never will)facebook but hit google multiple many times a day.
:P

 

[Gerrit]

I believe the report. Many Facebook girls are hot. My friend spends all his time there trying to hook up with a hot chick...

Definition of a "Facebook girl"? I mean, probably these girls have profiles just as well on plenty of other such sites. It's not like Facebook is the best dating tool around there. It's just adding some very silly applications and games to a profile, it copied the profile and networking setup from older sites and added a few (quite useless and meaningless) extra features to it.

 

[mrjohn]

It seems Facebook is working on several projects: first of all, an email service.

As I said before . . . Facebook is eating Yahoo's lunch. That is all.

It isn't a tectonic shift away from Google. It's Facebook eating those sites that are already roadkill in Google's wake.

Truth be told, it's a mercy killing. Yahoo is long overdue to bulldozed, and MSN was always a prompt to remind you to change your default search engine in IE.

 

[Gerrit]

But would you trust Facebook for your email, seriously? OK, Yahoo isn't top of the bill neither (STILL no https sessions, which is incredible when even obscure providers have encryption) but I'd still have more confidence in Yahoo if I really have to pick one.
Gmail > all other free email providers (except Safe Mail but the small storage bothers me a bit)

By the way, why do so many people want a rather childish domain such as Yahoo or Hotmail in their email addres?!

 

[mrjohn]

The email thing is what it is. Most folks with establish Yahoo accounts aren't going to flood to Facebook.

My problem with Facebook, long term, is that they are Yahoo all over again. Unfocused. They're dabbling in payments. They're dabbling in search. They're dabbling in email. They practically tripped into their broader popularity in large part thanks to Farmville, and in the process ate Pogo's and Yahoo Games' lunches.

While I'm not a fan of Twitter at all, I'll give Twitter this: they know why they're here.

Facebook is clueless. It's Yahoo all over again.

On the bright side, at least we know in advance who we'll be making fun of in 2020.