Google+ Still Failing: Top 10 Social Networking Sites by Market Share of Visits [October 2011]

Priit Kallas

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Filed under: Facebook, Social Media, Surveys and stats

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For a detailed view use interactive chart at the bottom of this post.

Now, the people who are holding breath to see Google+ on the top 10 list are starting to turn blue. Our data collected from Alexa (yeah, I know) shows that the Google’s bid for social dominance has been declining over the last weeks. That decline has stopped by the interest generated with the launch of Google+ pages for brands.

Below is the chart of Alexa data for plus.google.com (click it to zoom). To put it in the contect I have added Google Maps data as well. It shows a disruption in the data on September 13, but other than that the graph looks smooth and believable. From the chart you can see that the trend reversed itself after Google+ was opened for all users. I cant explain the decline that started after October 21. Maybe a tipping point was reached. The last change with Google+ pages for brands the trend reversed itself again but it’s to early to know where it takes us.

Note about Alexa

I understand that the service has its flaws but I still think there’s some value in these numbers. I freaked out when the data jumped for all Google domains on September 13. For gods sake guys, if you can’t measure even the biggest site in the world what can you measure? I wrote to Alexa asking if they can explain what happend (giving them all the data in xls). In an email exchange that followed they:

• didn’t understand what was asking;
• showed that they don’t understand what actually happened to their stats;
• didn’t get my name right.

But I digress Google+ doesn’t make even a blip on the radar (yet). October was pretty uneventful in the top 10 list. There’s a new site in October’s top social networking sites list. Yelp has replaced iVillage and shows 0.3 percent of total market share of visits. I would be interesting to see who wins women (iVillage) or reviews (Yelp).

All the big players have maintained their positions:

• Facebook 64.50%
• Youtube 20.30%
• Twitter 1.34%
• LinkedIn 0.63%

About this chart

The chart below is in logarithmic scale so that the smaller sites wouldn’t just a single line around 1% of social network market share. Every month in the chart lists the top 10 sites of that time by the market share of visits. Please note that it is just a percentage and 30% in January 2009 is a lot less than 30% in September 2010. The gaps in the the lines mean that the site wasn’t in the top 10 at that time.

I used an interactive chart making software Tableau Public for this visualization. If you don’t see anything below please try reload. If all else fails then look at the image or download the chart in PDF format: Top 10 Social Networking Sites by Market Share of Visits October 2011.

Posted on: November 10, 2011