The Most Influential Websites in the World: Wikipedia #1, Twitter #4 With a Bullet
A year ago we profiled an oddly-named service called ://URLFAN, which we concluded was a good 'Influence Index' for the Web. ://URLFAN ranks websites by popularity, based on blog mentions. Unlike analytics services like Alexa or Compete, ://URLFAN doesn't measure website traffic. It's similar to Technorati, only ://URLFAN ranks all websites and not just blogs.
We noted in our original review that ://URLFAN's ranking list will inevitably be biased towards users of social media - and in particular bloggers. That's a relatively small proportion of the world, however we think it's still a useful index because social media users are highly influential. With that in mind, which websites are currently ranked the most influential on the Web?
://URLFAN is, as we write this, "currently ranking the popularity of 3,783,534 websites by parsing 302,023,552 blog posts from 5,948,937 blog feeds."
The list below is ://URLFAN's all-time top 10. The number in brackets to the right of each item is last year's top 10 ranking (Nov '08).
#1. en.wikipedia.org (1)
#2. youtube.com (3)
#3. flickr.com (2)
#4. twitter.com (9)
#5. google.com (4)
#6. myspace.com (6)
#7. facebook.com (-)
#8. imdb.com (5)
#9. nytimes.com (7)
#10. apple.com (8)
There is one new entrant, Facebook at #7. washingtonpost.com moved out of the top 10, dropping from #10 last year to #12 this year.
Twitter is the biggest mover, up 5 places to #4.
Wikipedia is still the most cited website on the Web, for social media users and bloggers. YouTube and Flickr, two oft-used media sharing services, occupy the next two spots.
Last year we noted that there were 10 independent blogs in the top 100, including ReadWriteWeb. There are the same number this year, with a couple of new entrants. Here is the blog list circa November '09, again with last year's rank bracketed:
#23 techcrunch.com (#25)
#26 huffingtonpost.com (#32)
#33 engadget.com (#28)
#37 boingboing.net (#29)
#39 gizmodo (-)
#41 mashable.com (#91)
#53 arstechnica.com (#50)
#60 lifehacker.com (#63)
#78 readwriteweb.com (#97)
#93 smashing magazine (-)
Finally, what's new at ://URLFEED this year? You guessed it, a Real-Time Web feature! The site has introduced a Real-time Buzz Radar, which tracks buzzwords in the blogosphere. 'Chrome OS' is number 5 on the list currently, on the back of Google's Chrome OS event last week.
://URLFAN isn't a perfect measure of influence - you could easily argue that Google's PageRank is far better. However we continue to like the concept and we believe it's an accurate and up-to-date reflection of influential websites on the Web.
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I note that the domain for Wikipedia starts with "en". Is that a typing error?
If not, it appears that Wikipedia has a very comfortable lead. How often do non-English Wikipedia pages appear in data collected?
Good use of the Frank Zappa reference to add emphasis.
I assume the results are only of English-language sites?
I'm surprised to NOT see CNN or the BBC on this list at all. Surely they are influential.
wow, i'm surprised that google is number 5 but i suppose it makes sense because people don't normally reference google like they do with twitter, i.e. you can install a retweet button on your blog but there is no equivalent with google
Hi,
are you sure that these are the world? If that is right the nytimes is the only main news media web site that people look at?
Cheers
Patrick
Questionable list. How could flickr.com be influential. People read and rate pictures? What about BBC? what about CNN? This list must be either redone, or review. Even Alexa is more accurate than that.
Flickr would be so high because it's used by many bloggers to post photos. We use at RWW a lot and the attribution always links back to Flickr.
We interviewed Sue Gardner of Wikipedia and it's no wonder that they're recognized as the game-changer they've been named.
http://www.keynote.com/benchmark/new_media/article_interview_largest-encyclopedia.shtml
Apple website number 10? Something is wrong with this ranking. The company may be influential in the tech market, but its site on the whole Internet... I guess I'm gonna pay attention to other rankings.
Is Twitter a website, in any meaningful sense? Isn't it just an http-based instant-messaging server?
Despite all the differences with ://URLFAN rank, is a good way to see who is on top. Thanks!
There's just the small matter that it treats all subdomains (like Blogger blogs with blogspot addresses) as being literally all linked to the same domain and therefore not counting as links!
Thus any "independent" blog (such as mine) with a blogspot URL only gets rated according to links in from sites which are NOT blogspot URLs.
How do I know this? Well as my blog gets a lot of mentions on other people's blogs so I checked to see what my rating was. It looked low and I looked more closely at the links and lo and behold the only links coming up were those on NON-blogspot domains.
So it's only a measure of the extent to which primary domains link to one another. In no way can it be said to be a measure of the extent to which REAL INDIVIDUALS link to a site
You did spot that didn't you? ;)
What the heck is NYTimes doing on the top ten? No way.
Great list we have here. Maybe next step will be influence measuring of localized sites?
It isn't surprising to see such revolutionary sites in the top ten.
Nowhere at the URLFan page it says that this is "world's" top list. They just say that the list shows the most mentioned sites -- but, again, it does not say that it is the "world's" most influential ones.
I think the title of this article is, at the very least, misleading... how on earth (not a joke) could anyone believe the a top 100 list of the most influential sites in the "world" would include sfgate.com????
Why NYtimes is not on the list, I am really surprised about this
They forgot 4Chan.org. As the originator of most of the Internet's entertaining memes, it should be in the top 10.
There is five trillions of fiscal stimulus in the world economy – either had or about to have – and that is what is bringing the economy up. The monetary easing, with low interest rates and with quantitative easing in Britain and America – these have been the most important thing in giving the world economy a boost.
The monetary easing, with low interest rates and with quantitative easing in Britain and America – these have been the most important thing in giving the world economy a boost.
The monetary easing, with low interest rates and with quantitative easing in Britain and America – these have been the most important thing in giving the world economy a boost.
How does ://URLFAN deal with url shorteners? bit.ly comes in at #27 (which it probably deserves), but if they don't lookup the redirected URL, they would be missing out on basically every Twitter link - a huge shortcoming if they're trying to rate influence.
Where r amazon, ebay, yahoo, msn?
The list doesn't surprise me at all. I wonder how this list would break down demographically as well as M/F and age. Myspace would most likely drop off the list entirely if this was based on age.
Electronic cigarette, or also known as e-cig or an e-cigarette, is the world's smallest form of a vaporizer. Unlike herbal vaporizers, the electronic cigarette is designed to vaporize glycerin-based liquids such as propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin. The electronic cigarette consists of 3 parts; rechargeable battery, atomizer, and a cartridge. When a user inhales on an electronic cigarette, the movement of air is detected by a micro sensor which activates the heating element, also known as the atomizer. The atomizer heats up the cartridge containing liquid, which turns into vapor.
No question on the Wikipedia and Youtube but I want to ask for those personal blogs mentioned, problogger and perezhilton are nowhere to be found. what's happening?
The 'en.' in front of Wikipeia isn't a typing error Evan Jacobson, it's the actual url. We just automatically assume the website is 'wikipedia.org', but when we type it in it automatically redirects us to 'en.wikipedia.org'.
blog mentions is certainly an interesting way of demonstrating which sites are the most socially influential
No question on the Wikipedia and Youtube but I want to ask for those personal blogs mentioned
I can not understand why Twitter would be higher than Google.
Is this really possible?
Me personally much prefer URLFAN but Alec and I can tell you that you may already popular, but as one said before me anywhere I do not see CNN or BBC
What can I say, Wikimedia is something other than google, but I think the inability to set the Twitter button for google...
As there is no BBC and the wikipedia is only the "en" version I assume this is only american traffic and not the world. I know to most americans america is the world but I mean the world literally :)
wikipedia definitely can not live without Google, and it is fundamental difference ... wikipedia is a closed system, and that it is the basic flaw ...
big but...
great but ... google does not recognize the important and unimportant ... and it caused a problem ...
Great list we have here. Despite all the differences with ://URLFAN rank, is a good way to see who is on top.
Great list, maybe twitter in a short time will be at #1 no doubt.
Great list, maybe twitter in a short time will be at #1 no doubt.
Wikipedia is the best...