Facebook: Most Popular Search Term & Most Visited Website in 2010, Hitwise Says

Facebook passed Google as the most-visited website in the US in 2010, according to a new end-of-year report from Experian Hitwise. And not only that, but Facebook was also the most searched-for keyword of the year, too, just as it was a year ago. In fact, Hitwise says four of the top ten most popular […]

Chat with SearchBot

Facebook passed Google as the most-visited website in the US in 2010, according to a new end-of-year report from Experian Hitwise. And not only that, but Facebook was also the most searched-for keyword of the year, too, just as it was a year ago. In fact, Hitwise says four of the top ten most popular search terms in 2010 involved people searching for Facebook.

facebook2010

According to Hitwise, Facebook accounted for 8.93% of all US website visits between January and the end of November, 2010. Google, which was the most-visited site in 2009, dropped to second this year with 7.19% of all visits. But, if you account for visits to YouTube (owned by Google), then Google properties had more visits than Facebook.

Three Yahoo sites placed in the top ten and together they accounted for 8.12% of all US website visits. Bing cracked the top ten for the first time, while MSN.com jumped from ninth in 2009 to sixth this year.

Facebook also dominated search activity, with four of the ten most popular search terms: Facebook, Facebook login, facebook.com, and www.facebook.com. The word “facebook” accounted for 2.11% of all US searches, Hitwise says, and the four terms combined to account for 3.48% of search activity. That’s a 207% increase for those terms compared to 2009.

Experian Hitwise says terms related to social networking accounted for 4.18% of the top 50 searches. Their full release has additional information about popular search terms in categories such as movies, personailities, sports, and more.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.