comScore has released some intriguing data about Web usage internationally. They say that 14 of the top 25 US Web properties now attract more visitors from outside the US than from within. That includes the top 5 US properties - Yahoo! Sites, Time Warner Network, Microsoft, Google Sites, and eBay.
This is significant because it's a continuation of a long-term trend for online population to be more distributed around the world - particularly in China and the rest of Asia. Indeed comScore says that the US share of global online population has fallen from 65% to less than 25% in 10 years. We've been tracking these trends on R/WW all this year - in September we noted that as a percentage of world Internet penetration, Asia increased from 35.6% to 36.5%. This incremental increase is happening month by month, whereas the US figure is staying static. As Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe, said:
"The fact that more than three-quarters of the traffic to Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft is now coming from outside of the U.S. is indicative of what a truly global medium the Internet has become."
Even at the Web 2.0 Summit this year, it's been noticeable that there is a larger international presence in the presenting companies. It's a great trend and really shows how mature the Web medium is getting. There are also big implications for marketers and advertisers, as more and more of the Internet's population becomes international.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: 3/4 of Traffic to Top Websites is International.
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Richard MacManus points us to an interesting comscore report which shows that more than half of the top 25 US-based websites receive the majority of their traffic from outside of the US. As an example, wikipedia receives almost 80 percent of its traffi... Read More
ClickZ reports on a ComScore study that shows "top ad-supported properties including Google, Microsoft sites, Yahoo and CNET Networks derive at least 70 percent of their traffic from non-U.S. users." Richard MacManus from Read/Write Web comments, "This... Read More
Read/WriteWeb's Web 2.0 Summit coverage sponsored by Yahoo! It's the end of a hectic week of conference-going for your R/WW correspondent - and so time for a wrap-up of my thoughts on the Web 2.0 Summit. Firstly, my overriding feeling... Read More
Nachdem die USA bisher immer für den Großteil des Traffics im Internet verantwortlich waren und daher erfolgreiche Sites aus anderen Länder bis auf wenige Ausnahmen eher Mangelware sind, verweist R/WW¬†auf eine interessante comScore-Pres... Read More
While at the Web 2.0 Summit last week I caught up with About.com CEO Scott Meyer. About.com is the long-standing network of how-to websites, purchased in March 2005 by the New York Times Company for $410 Million. Since that time... Read More
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Hi Richard,
Wow, that is interesting! Given the USA has a mixed PR worldwide from "I hate the evil USA" to "Thank God the USA is there" the info you quote suggests that start ups have a challenge - How can you be 'attractive' to both camps?
Or........... does it matter - Hey there are enough "lefthanders speaking mandarin who are male 18 to 25 yo" that that market is enough!
The exciting thing here in this research seems to be the opportunity for focus in a culture or geographic segment
Cheers Simon
Posted by: Simon Moore | November 9, 2006 5:07 PMinternational users also adopt the new websites/technologies faster than the American audience.
Posted by: lemon obrien | November 9, 2006 6:30 PMAt Atlantic Leap we've worked with some well-known web brands to help them monetize their European traffic.
The main challenge is that many of these sites serve only American content and then want to sell advertising around this to non-U.S. visitors. But unless a site is willing to localize their content they will never achieve the big advertising deals -- only incremental sales on an opportunistic basis. Non-U.S. advertisers want to buy relevant, localized content -- it's a simple as that.
What's worse is that many U.S. sites knowingly serve U.S. ads to non-U.S. visitors so that they can more easily fulfil contractual delivery commitments. It's surprising more advertisers haven't caught on to the fact that a lot of their delivery is wasted on non-U.S. visitors who are not potential purchasers of their products.
Kind regards,
Posted by: Evan Rudowski | November 10, 2006 7:38 AMEvan Rudowski
www.atlanticleap.net
Hi Richard. I hope that you're on the way to recovery from back to back conferences. For some reason, my trackback to this piece didn't track.
While the figures don't surprise me (I check in with Internet World Statistics from time to time); it did put the figures into a practical perspective by citing specific examples of international traffic (i.e. wikipeida just under 80 percent non-US share!)
Question for US-based websites: Is your message internationalized?
All the best
Tom O'Leary
Posted by: Tom O'Leary | November 10, 2006 1:19 PMThat's right. That's why Simpy.com is getting localized left and right.
Posted by: Otis Gospodnetic | November 10, 2006 10:27 PMThis is very interesting, and I'd like to see surveys for other countries, including little ole New Zealand. I would guess that the deciding factor here is language - English-language sites will have mixed international audiences, something that would apply to Spanish-language ones too.
But yeah, the ads are a pain... US ads from retailers not willing to sell to overseas customers sucks.
Posted by: Juha | November 14, 2006 11:52 AM