Google loses its status as the most popular domain on the internet. According to statistics published by web security company Cloudflare, the search giant has lost its position to TikTok. Cloudflare produced a list of the most popular domains as part of its Year in Review report. The list highlights domains in several categories that have seen the highest traffic from one year to the next.
According to Cloudflare’s statistics, Google.com — which contains Maps, Translate, and News among other Google products — was the domain that got the most traffic in the previous year’s Year in Review report. TikTok came in seventh place in the study. According to this year’s estimate, TikTok.com will end 2021 in first place, ahead of industry heavyweights such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other well-known world-leading domains.
“It was on February 17, 2021, that TikTok got the top spot for a day,” Cloudflare said of TikTok’s climb to the top of the most popular domain list for the year 2021: “It was on February 17, 2021, that TikTok earned the top spot for a day.” TikTok gained a few more days in March and May, but it wasn’t until August 10, 2021, that TikTok took the lead on the majority of days.
Lists of the most popular e-commerce platforms, most popular social media domains, and most popular video streaming sites are also featured in Cloudflare’s Year in Review report. It’s no surprise that Amazon is the most popular e-commerce domain, with Taobao, eBay, and Walmart following closely behind. The list of most popular video streaming services was dominated by Netflix, YouTube, and HBOMax; nevertheless, Twitch did not make the top ten list.
Before reaching such heights, the social media domain has a long way to go. According to Cloudflare, TikTok.com received a substantial quantity of traffic compared to other domains. This in no way implies that TikTok has more users than Google or other social media platforms. However, there is a good probability that the social media platform may one day overtake Facebook as the most popular social media network, which makes it a platform to watch in the coming year, given that it has consistently ranked first in several industry rankings this year. TikTok is said to have surpassed YouTube in terms of average watch time in the United States in September. According to research from app analytics firm App Annie, TikTok users in the United States now spend more time each month watching videos than YouTube users.
According to Insider Intelligence (previously known as eMarketer), TikTok has eclipsed Snapchat and Twitter in terms of global user counts, but it still lags behind Facebook and Instagram. In other words, TikTok has risen to become the world’s third-largest social media network. TikTok’s global users increased by 59.8% in 2020, and by another 40.8 percent in 2021. Furthermore, Insider Intelligence predicts that TikTok’s global user base will expand by 15.1 percent by 2022. If that prediction holds true, TikTok will account for almost 20% of all social media users by the end of next year. With all of this in mind, if TikTok isn’t already a component of your social media marketing strategy for 2022, these figures strongly suggest that it should be.
