Thursday, March 8, 2001

Web Traffic Becoming Less Concentrated

Alexa Research, a leading web intelligence and traffic measurement organization, has found that traffic on the World Wide Web has become more dispersed in the past seven months, but that the leading sites still attract the lion’s share of all page views. The study is based on a comparison of Web traffic in June 2000 and January 2001.

- Among the top 10 sites, the Web was 11.0% less concentrated in January 2001 than it was in June 2000 (i.e., the top 10 sites accounted for 11% fewer pageviews in January than they did in June).

- Among the top 100 sites, the Web was 12.2% less concentrated.

- Among the top 1,000 sites, it was 9.4% less concentrated.

Despite the changes, 1 of every 4 pages viewed on the Web was at one of the top 50 sites and half of all pages on the Web were viewed at the top 1,210 sites.

In January 2001, 1 of every 6 pages viewed on the Web (16.6%) was viewed at one of the top 10 sites. Nearly 3 in 10 pageviews (29.6%) occurred at the top 100 sites. Nearly half (48.3%) of all pageviews happened at the top 1,000 sites. All of these numbers are down from June, indicating a greater disbursement of pageviews across the Web. The greatest dilution since June was in the share of pageviews owned by the top 100 sites—in June, the top 100 accounted for 33.7% of all pageviews. That share has been diluted 12.2% in seven months to 29.6%.

“The top sites continue to pull billions of pageviews each month, but their share of overall Web traffic is being diluted,” said Lead Data Miner Jason Maxham. “The Web, in a sense, is becoming more democratic. As people grow more comfortable with the Web, they tend to branch out from their homepage and explore a greater number of sites. Still, the majority of Web traffic is going to a tiny fraction of the millions of sites that are out there.”

Another way to illustrate the decreasing concentration of the Web is to compare the number of sites that accounted for a given share of total pageviews in June versus January. For example, in June, 27 sites accounted for 1 of every 4 pages viewed on the Web. In January, that number grew to 50, which means that an additional 23 sites (or, 85.2% more sites) shared that fourth of Web traffic. In June, just 695 sites accounted for half of all Web traffic. In January, 1,210 sites owned half of Web traffic, a change of 74.1%.

An additional sign of decreasing web concentration—and greater Web traffic in general—is that a greater number of sites are drawing big monthly numbers. In January 2001, 17 sites attracted more than one billion estimated pageviews. In June 2000, only four sites did so.

Dot.Com Fallout a Boon to Job Search Sites
Traffic to the 20 leading career-related websites increased 47.7% among U.S. users between December 2000 and January 2001, according to Alexa Research. Monster.com led the way with an estimated 615 million pageviews, followed by HotJobs.com, Headhunter.net, craigslist and dice.com. Traffic increased by at least 20% at each of the 20 leading career-related sites and by at least 40% at 18 of the 20.

“Not all dot-coms are dead. As a result of the downturn in the economy, job search sites are thriving,” said Marc Engel, lead analyst for Alexa Research. “While national unemployment figures are still near historical lows, the cutbacks in Internet-related industries have created a large, available talent pool, one that knows how to find anything online, including jobs. They know that with just a few clicks, they can access job listings organized by geographic region, job type, industry preference, and salary, as well as obtain advice on resume building and interviewing techniques. Aside from networking, the Web is probably the most effective way to search for a new job.”

With an estimated 615 million pageviews, Monster.com was the top-ranked career site and the 13th busiest website overall among U.S. users for January 2001, ahead of such powerhouses as Lycos.com, ZDNet.com, CNET.com, MSNBC.com and CNN.com. Among the top 40 sites overall, Monster.com posted the best rank improvement over December, when it was ranked 25th. Pageviews at Monster.com increased 41.5% between December and January. Monster’s traffic roughly equaled that of its six busiest competitors combined.

Monster.com was one of three career-related sites ranked among the 100 busiest sites in January. Joining Monster were HotJobs.com (ranked 57th in January, up from 92nd in December) and Headhunter.net (68th in Jan., 118th in Dec.). HotJobs.com saw a 51.4% increase in traffic to an estimated 178.3 million pageviews, while Headhunter.net climbed 62.5% to an estimated 157.3 million pageviews.

Three of the top 20 career-related sites saw their traffic more than double between December and January. AECJobBank.com, geared toward the architectural, engineering and construction industries, made the largest month-to-month gain, with January traffic nearly tripling over December’s figure. BrassRing.com increased 108% and JOBTRACK.com (a service of Monster.com) improved 105%.

News Tidbits (appears every day on the front page)
- Big Internet companies are quickly readjusting their financial figures and issuing warnings on earnings. Yesterday, Yahoo announced that it won't meet first quarter financial estimates. As part of the announcement, the CEO of Yahoo is going to step aside and search for a new CEO is underway. CNET has also issued a warning that it won't meet its first quarter estimates.