The Most Visited Website in Every Country (That Isn’t A Search Engine)
October 6, 2022 6:08 AM Subscribe
We removed search engines from our results to discount “middle-man visits” and removed Facebook and YouTube as they would otherwise dominate the results. So we have identified and mapped the most visited website in every country around the world, and also the top news, banking, fashion, and food website in each region. [via]
there's perhaps nothing more telling about *anything* than how the most popular site for much of the world is Wikipedia, but for the United States, it's Amazon.
posted by martin q blank at 6:26 AM on October 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by martin q blank at 6:26 AM on October 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, every country has its own web life and preferences
Every country apparently not including most of the Caribbean or the South Pacific, chunks of Africa and the Middle East. Oh, and China.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:35 AM on October 6, 2022
Every country apparently not including most of the Caribbean or the South Pacific, chunks of Africa and the Middle East. Oh, and China.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:35 AM on October 6, 2022
The article says they used data from this source for their findings. You can see on that source all of the websites they skipped/eliminated from consideration, if you are curious.
posted by Mid at 6:41 AM on October 6, 2022
posted by Mid at 6:41 AM on October 6, 2022
there's perhaps nothing more telling about *anything* than how the most popular site for much of the world is Wikipedia, but for the United States, it's Amazon.
and for Canada, Reddit
posted by chavenet at 6:43 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
and for Canada, Reddit
posted by chavenet at 6:43 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
A-and if you want to buy the most visited site in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saintbible.com, it's a snip at $2,595
posted by chavenet at 6:46 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 6:46 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Mid - yip, the search engine optimization company they used the data from (Semrush) has the data for all those countries available on its front page….so it was a conscious choice it seems to exclude these countries. And the data looks off - a bunch of counties have ge.ch (the regional government website for Geneva) in their top three or so. Including Antartica. In fact .CH domains appear quite a bit.
Imagine a SEO company’s data being whacky…I’m shocked. /s
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:52 AM on October 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Imagine a SEO company’s data being whacky…I’m shocked. /s
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:52 AM on October 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
"We also didn’t consider adult, betting, illegal streaming/downloading services, and malicious websites"
Well, that explains why this isn't just Pornhub covering the land masses.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:54 AM on October 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
Well, that explains why this isn't just Pornhub covering the land masses.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:54 AM on October 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
Whatever the data they used, it feels hinky. Finland has “is.fi”, which is a tabloid website. I’m sure it’s popular, but there are other domains which are bound to be much more popular. When I checked the source website, some domains, like yle.fi (the Finnish equivalent of the BBC) are below them. Considering how big a share of the streaming sector they have here, that sounds really odd.
posted by Kattullus at 7:09 AM on October 6, 2022
posted by Kattullus at 7:09 AM on October 6, 2022
Reddit feels welcoming to me as a Canadian
personally, I think Reddit def. contributes to my anxiety, but then MeFi is no bed of kittens at times.. I do find the subreddits to be handy for a number of specific interests, but I cancelled my account a few years ago and either scroll for r/funnyanimals or do targeted searches (adding 'reddit' to your google search is pretty effective at times)
one things is certain, I cannot scroll FB the same way.. I re-opened an account this year to manage a community group page, and I find myself dragging my ass back into FB every week or two to check our page, it's just brutal spending time in FB.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:19 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
personally, I think Reddit def. contributes to my anxiety, but then MeFi is no bed of kittens at times.. I do find the subreddits to be handy for a number of specific interests, but I cancelled my account a few years ago and either scroll for r/funnyanimals or do targeted searches (adding 'reddit' to your google search is pretty effective at times)
one things is certain, I cannot scroll FB the same way.. I re-opened an account this year to manage a community group page, and I find myself dragging my ass back into FB every week or two to check our page, it's just brutal spending time in FB.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:19 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
straitstimes.com is a fashion website?
posted by acb at 7:24 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 7:24 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
I thought I was a weirdo for spending most of my internet scrolling on my city and province reddit subs, plus r/canada and r/worldnews. I guess it's not weird at all.
It does feel like home, doesn't it? I hadn't thought of it before as an escape from American culture but I think you're right, Phalene.
posted by kitcat at 7:33 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
It does feel like home, doesn't it? I hadn't thought of it before as an escape from American culture but I think you're right, Phalene.
posted by kitcat at 7:33 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
there's perhaps nothing more telling about *anything* than how the most popular site for much of the world is Wikipedia, but for the United States, it's Amazon.
Don't worry, according to this graph the Thais will keep you company. Shopee is one of the regional Amazons.
posted by cendawanita at 7:39 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Don't worry, according to this graph the Thais will keep you company. Shopee is one of the regional Amazons.
posted by cendawanita at 7:39 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Strange to see that the most popular news site in Uganda is thesun.co.uk - I can't imagine how Rupert's tabloid would cater to their local needs. (In neighbouring Rwanda and Tanzania, it's the BBC.)
posted by rory at 7:53 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rory at 7:53 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
and for Canada, Reddit
and a quick search gets us to:
Freedom Convoy 2022
no surprise at all.
posted by philip-random at 8:03 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
I do actually like that the Australian Rugby League NRL.com website is the listed for Paupa New Guinea (it feels like it would be very popular there given how much they love the sport - go the mighty Kumuls!), but isn’t for Australia.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:08 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:08 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
@philip-random, of the many reasons Reddit is another shitty social media platform, and perhaps uniquely shitty for Canadians, I'm not sure I follow any explicit logic in the Freedom Convoy observation
fwiw, I was following r/ottawa and r/canada a fair bit during that episode, my brother's family is in Ottawa, and the (much larger) memberships of these subreddits were overwhelming in their opprobrium for the "freedom" assholes. compare the memberships between r/freedomconvoy2022 and r/onguardforthee. Reddit is not hopeless for Canadians, is my point.. the city subreddits are where I get a lot of my impressions for e.g. family and travel (Edmonton, Halifax, etc). A lot of fairly unexceptional activity from what I can see.
I find myself in the strange position of defending Reddit on a Thursday
posted by elkevelvet at 8:20 AM on October 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
fwiw, I was following r/ottawa and r/canada a fair bit during that episode, my brother's family is in Ottawa, and the (much larger) memberships of these subreddits were overwhelming in their opprobrium for the "freedom" assholes. compare the memberships between r/freedomconvoy2022 and r/onguardforthee. Reddit is not hopeless for Canadians, is my point.. the city subreddits are where I get a lot of my impressions for e.g. family and travel (Edmonton, Halifax, etc). A lot of fairly unexceptional activity from what I can see.
I find myself in the strange position of defending Reddit on a Thursday
posted by elkevelvet at 8:20 AM on October 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
"We also didn’t consider adult, betting, illegal streaming/downloading services, and malicious websites"
Well, that explains why this isn't just Pornhub covering the land masses.
Yeah. It definitely would be interesting see what the results would have looked like had they included Pornhub and the larger *Tube sites. I wouldn't expect PH to out-perform Amazon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a very close second.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:36 AM on October 6, 2022
Well, that explains why this isn't just Pornhub covering the land masses.
Yeah. It definitely would be interesting see what the results would have looked like had they included Pornhub and the larger *Tube sites. I wouldn't expect PH to out-perform Amazon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a very close second.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:36 AM on October 6, 2022
I haven't even heard about their most popular site for Poland, jbzd, which is apparently a 4-chan-like offshoot of the older and much more popular meme aggregator Kwejk. As of two years ago, it had half the unique monthly users of the most popular meme aggregator Demotywatory, and all of those are niche sites with under 2 million unique monthly users - a quick look at the newest Gemius panel information gives 10 million Website/PC users for the Allegro shopping platform, which off the top of my head I'd also nominate for Poland's most popular site (known among others for chasing Ebay out of the country and currently giving Bezos a very hard time indeed). No meme aggregator even ranks in the top 20.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:16 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:16 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
At this point, reddit is a fairly significant political space in Canada.
r/Ottawa is in the middle of an election cycle right now, and several minor ripples have started/been amplified there. IMO, the city subreddits are the best ones.
r/Canada has been targeted by foreign actors, to the point that our counterintelligence agencies have issued a number of oblique warnings about it. (Russian, KSA and Chinese). Probably more importantly it's being brigaded by the CPC and federal Liberal parties on a regular basis---I think they're using the campus clubs as ways to recruit brigades. I know some politically staffers use it as a way to have sparring matches as well. I don't think it's actually that important in terms of influence, but it's been growing in the past 4 years. I do think it's more important than much of Twitter in the Canadian context, but perhaps only recently so.
and most amusingly to me, r/canadpublicservants, the place for mostly federal public servants, mostly (but hardly all) based in Ottawa, has been a major point of employees to organize and mock management's efforts to return the service to the 9-5 office. Several executives have been made examples of for tone deaf comments, mostly with regard to the fairly weak justifications for needing employees to return to the office. A lot of GenZ posters, but lots of GenX sarcasm too.
posted by bonehead at 9:59 AM on October 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
r/Ottawa is in the middle of an election cycle right now, and several minor ripples have started/been amplified there. IMO, the city subreddits are the best ones.
r/Canada has been targeted by foreign actors, to the point that our counterintelligence agencies have issued a number of oblique warnings about it. (Russian, KSA and Chinese). Probably more importantly it's being brigaded by the CPC and federal Liberal parties on a regular basis---I think they're using the campus clubs as ways to recruit brigades. I know some politically staffers use it as a way to have sparring matches as well. I don't think it's actually that important in terms of influence, but it's been growing in the past 4 years. I do think it's more important than much of Twitter in the Canadian context, but perhaps only recently so.
and most amusingly to me, r/canadpublicservants, the place for mostly federal public servants, mostly (but hardly all) based in Ottawa, has been a major point of employees to organize and mock management's efforts to return the service to the 9-5 office. Several executives have been made examples of for tone deaf comments, mostly with regard to the fairly weak justifications for needing employees to return to the office. A lot of GenZ posters, but lots of GenX sarcasm too.
posted by bonehead at 9:59 AM on October 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Is it significant that Facebook is absent? I'd guess "yes".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:24 AM on October 6, 2022
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:24 AM on October 6, 2022
internet scrolling on my city and province reddit subs, plus r/canada
r/canada is ... not good, the moderators are far-right, if not worse.
For more left-leaning take on things, try: /r/onguardforthee instead.
posted by rozcakj at 10:26 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
r/canada is ... not good, the moderators are far-right, if not worse.
For more left-leaning take on things, try: /r/onguardforthee instead.
posted by rozcakj at 10:26 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is it significant that Facebook is absent?
In the link they say ‘As Zyro revealed last year, humanity spends 213.2 billion hours per year on Google, 142.6 billion hours on YouTube, and 44.6 billion on Facebook – eclipsing the use of nearly all other sites.’
posted by ellieBOA at 10:33 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
In the link they say ‘As Zyro revealed last year, humanity spends 213.2 billion hours per year on Google, 142.6 billion hours on YouTube, and 44.6 billion on Facebook – eclipsing the use of nearly all other sites.’
posted by ellieBOA at 10:33 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
MetaFilter: explain why this isn't just Pornhub covering the land masses.
posted by hippybear at 11:57 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 11:57 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
I did shed a tiny patriotic tear when I saw the BBC, dearest Auntie, sitting atop the UK's ranking.
posted by Probabilitics at 12:03 PM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Probabilitics at 12:03 PM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
world is Wikipedia, but for the United States, it's Amazon.
Well, Google is our wikipedia right? I imagine their web snippets basically front run wikipedia clicks. If I search Google for "GDP per capita of Nicaragua" I am presented with a timeseries chart, and links to the world bank.
Perhaps the places where Wikipedia wins out don't have web snippets in their most popular languages?
posted by pwnguin at 12:17 PM on October 6, 2022
Well, Google is our wikipedia right? I imagine their web snippets basically front run wikipedia clicks. If I search Google for "GDP per capita of Nicaragua" I am presented with a timeseries chart, and links to the world bank.
Perhaps the places where Wikipedia wins out don't have web snippets in their most popular languages?
posted by pwnguin at 12:17 PM on October 6, 2022
The article says they used data from this source for their findings. You can see on that source all of the websites they skipped/eliminated from consideration, if you are curious.
Eliminating search engines, youtube & facebook per their criteria, pornhub ranks 8th on the list. I think it also makes sense to strike icloud.com and paypal.com, which would move pornhub up to 6th. But then there's the curiosity of clarity.ms, which is a website I've never heard of and which doesn't load anyway. If we drop that one as well, we have a top ten of amazon, reddit, apple, instagram, pornhub, twitter, wikipedia, xvideos, walmart and fandom. Two adult sites in the top 10 seems about right.
posted by slkinsey at 12:24 PM on October 6, 2022
Eliminating search engines, youtube & facebook per their criteria, pornhub ranks 8th on the list. I think it also makes sense to strike icloud.com and paypal.com, which would move pornhub up to 6th. But then there's the curiosity of clarity.ms, which is a website I've never heard of and which doesn't load anyway. If we drop that one as well, we have a top ten of amazon, reddit, apple, instagram, pornhub, twitter, wikipedia, xvideos, walmart and fandom. Two adult sites in the top 10 seems about right.
posted by slkinsey at 12:24 PM on October 6, 2022
MetaPorn would involve a lot of recipe and dog content
posted by waving at 12:37 PM on October 6, 2022
posted by waving at 12:37 PM on October 6, 2022
MetaPorn would involve a lot of recipe and dog content
I'm not going to criticize your porn consumption habits, but most of us to not have "dog content" as part of that.
posted by hippybear at 12:42 PM on October 6, 2022
I'm not going to criticize your porn consumption habits, but most of us to not have "dog content" as part of that.
posted by hippybear at 12:42 PM on October 6, 2022
just Pornhub covering the land masses
Maybe they could change their logo to a variant of the Sherwin-Williams one.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:31 PM on October 6, 2022
Maybe they could change their logo to a variant of the Sherwin-Williams one.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:31 PM on October 6, 2022
I did shed a tiny patriotic tear when I saw the BBC, dearest Auntie, sitting atop the UK's ranking.
I was very pleased with myself in correctly predicting that we would be clicking on Auntie the most.
posted by plonkee at 4:05 PM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was very pleased with myself in correctly predicting that we would be clicking on Auntie the most.
posted by plonkee at 4:05 PM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Why is a Nintendo news site the top result for Guatemala??
posted by Jon Mitchell at 4:14 PM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 4:14 PM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
I checked the source data for Germany and amazon.de ranks higher than Wikipedia, despite the graphic saying otherwise.
posted by Skybly at 1:49 AM on October 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Skybly at 1:49 AM on October 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
This just in: Iceland apparently not a country
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:43 AM on October 7, 2022
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:43 AM on October 7, 2022
Which is weird, because their source has Iceland. It also has Greenland, but those statistics look made up, honestly.
posted by Kattullus at 8:34 AM on October 7, 2022
posted by Kattullus at 8:34 AM on October 7, 2022
I can't resist expressing my disgust of the cookie consent pop-up on that website.
posted by Captain Fetid at 4:15 PM on October 9, 2022
posted by Captain Fetid at 4:15 PM on October 9, 2022
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