Websites with the Most Traffic since 1993
The internet has developed at a mind-boggling rate during the past three decades.
Less than 200 websites were accessible on the World Wide Web in 1993. By the year 2022, that number had increased to 2 billion.
In this animated graphic by James Eagle, which spans the years from 1993 to 2022, the most popular websites are displayed to provide viewers with a historical view of how the internet has changed over time.
Dial-Up Internet, around 1990–2000
The proto-internet was available as early as the 1970s, but dial-up modems allowed for the development of the more user-friendly and generally accessible form of the internet that we know today.
Users of dial-up had access to the internet via a modem that was plugged into a working phone line. Prodigy and CompuServe were only two of the many internet portals available in the 1990s, but AOL rapidly overtook them all as the most widely used.
For almost ten years, AOL remained the most popular website. The website had more than 400 million hits per month by June 2000. For background, at that time there were around 413 million internet users worldwide.
RANK Website Monthly Visits (May 2000)
1 AOL 400,891,812
2 Yahoo 387,573,587
3 MSN 354,239,803
4 eBay 116,101,785
5 Lycos 116,064,930
However, AOL lost ground when broadband internet became available and rendered dial-up obsolete, and Yahoo replaced it as the most popular website.
Mid-2000s: Google vs. Yahoo
Yahoo was first created in 1994 as a web directory under the name “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web Websites with the Most Traffic.”
As the business gained momentum, its name was changed to Yahoo, which has now become a backronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”
By the early 2000s, Yahoo had quickly expanded to become the most visited website online. For numerous years, Yahoo was the leader; by April 2004, Yahoo had 5.6 billion monthly visitors.
RANK Website Monthly Visits (May 2000)
1 Yahoo 400,891,812
2 MSN 387,573,587
3 Google 354,239,803
4 AOL 116,101,785
5 eBay 116,064,930
But Google was right behind it. Google was established in 1998 as a more straightforward and effective search engine, and the website soon gained popularity.
Funny enough, Google was Yahoo’s default search engine up until 2004 when Yahoo switched to its own search engine technology Websites with the Most Traffic.
Google and Yahoo engaged in strong competition for the following several years, with both companies rotating at the top of the list of the most visited websites. Then, in the 2010s, Yahoo’s trajectory began to decline as a result of several wasted chances and bad decisions.
As a result, Google firmly established itself at the top, and the website is still the most visited one as of January 2022.
Early 2010s and the Late 2000s: Social Media Enters the Conversation
Even though Google has been at the top for almost 20 years, the rise of social media sites like YouTube and Facebook is noteworthy.
Facebook and YouTube were by no means the first social media sites to take off. Back in 2007, MySpace enjoyed a prosperous period; at one point, it was the third-most popular website on the Internet.
RANK Website Monthly Visits (May 2000)
1 Google 400,891,812
2 Yahoo 387,573,587
3 MySpace 354,239,803
4 MSN 116,101,785
5 eBay 116,064,930
YouTube and Facebook, however, heralded a new age for social media platforms, in part due to their perfect timing. Around the same time as smartphone advances were revolutionizing the mobile phone business, both platforms hit the market. The design of the iPhone and the launch of the App store in 2008 made it simpler than ever to use your mobile device to access the internet.
Facebook and YouTube continue to rank second and third in terms of traffic as of January 2022.
Google is now synonymous with the Internet in the 2020s.
By a wide margin, Google is the most popular search engine, accounting for 90% of all online, mobile, and in-app searches.
What websites will be the most popular in a few years? Will Google maintain its position at the top? There are no indications that the internet behemoth will slow down any time soon, but history has shown us that things may change. Furthermore, nobody needs to get too at ease at the top.
