Facebook beats Google and gets #1 in Alexa ranking
Facebook beats Google in Alexa Top websites
It happened. Google’s supremacy in Alexa Ranking is now over. During the last days everybody found Facebook at the #1 place in Alexa Top Sites, this meaning that in the last month Facebook had a better traffic rank then Google. But how Alexa calculates the traffic rank? Here is what they say:
The sites in the top sites lists are ordered by their 1 month alexa traffic rank.
The 1 month rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1.
Is this data really representative for all internet users?
Alexa, an Amazon company, gathers its data from internet users who install the Alexa toolbar into their browser.
With just that being said, it is easy to deduct that their data is not complete, and it may also be representative for only a portion of the internet users, those who are interested in getting the website statistics provided by the toolbar.
Another issue is that Alexa Toolbar is available only for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome browsers, and those 3 have only about 90% usage share of desktop web browsers, leaving the 10% of users who browse the internet using Safari, Opera or other browsers out of their statistics. Not just that, but to the total number of excluded desktop internet users we must also add all the internet mobile users. Mobile now accounts for 10% of all Internet usage worldwide, after the boom of smartphones and tablets. And this percentage increases day by day with an incredible speed (it doubled in the last year – source).
Ok, so the Alexa TOP may not be very accurate, but if Facebook is now #1 and Google #2, what does it mean?
Is Facebook better then Google?
If Facebook is now on top of the Alexa classification does it mean that Facebook is the best website in the entire world? Does that mean Google is not as good as Facebook?
My opinion is NO. Because you can’t compare apples to oranges:
Let’s analyse the purpose of these 2 websites.
It’s a social network. On their “About” page they say:
Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.
Facebook’s mission
Their purpose is to connect people, make them interact with each-other by sharing stuff and receiving feedback from others on the stuff they share.
If we take this in more technical words, more time on site and more pageviews are Facebook indicators of better user experience.
If people spend more time on Facebook and visit more pages the creaters of the site conclude the users are happy and the website serves its purpose.
Mainly Google is a search engine. I say mainly because under Google’s mark there are a lot of other services like Gmail, Google+, Google maps, etc. But here we are talking about google.com – the search engine. And on their “About” page they say:
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
As a search engine, Google spiders the World Wide Web collecting information and organizes this information in such way to be able to return to its users the most relevant results to searches.
Google considers its users happy and its purpose served when the users find immediately what they were looking for.
Let’s translate this into technical language: less time on site and less pageviews are an indicator that Google serves its purpose best.
And that’s why, after looking at the purpose of these both website, and presuming the difference between #1 and #2 in Alexa top is made by the number of pageviews, I say both Facebook and Google are doing really well in making their visitors happy.
(If you have another opinion on this I’ll be glad to hear it in the comments!)
What should marketers do about it?
I use both Google and Facebook in my online marketing work. Just learning the tricks in Facebook advertising but having so many “Wooow!” moments while doing it. And also some “Ouchhh!” moments…
I always recommend using the tactic that you know best, but keeping an eye on what’s new and experimenting.
If Google is now #2 in Alexa rank, it doesn’t mean advertising in Google (Adwords) or optimizing your site in order to get better rankings in organic search results are things of the past and now we should all move to Facebook.
If someone searching on Google clicks on your website in the organic search results or in the ads, they leave Google. If you offer them what they need they will not go back to Google to search for the same thing again.
When you get a visitor from Google, Google probably loses some of those pageviews that count on Alexa Rank and lets Facebook win this.
On the other hand, Facebook ranking #1 makes me think that people visiting this website are not that interested in leaving it so easily. They came there to stay close to and interact with their friends, right? Getting them to click on your ads or promoted links may be a tough task.
Since I don’t master Facebook advertising I will stop here with this, I don’t want to say something stupid from my own “unexperience” 
But if I were to make a conclusion on the latest changes in the Alexa top, for me this means Facebook is a serious player. And since it managed to dethrone Google after such a long time, it is not going to vanish from the face of the web so soon as many predict.
Google and Facebook, Facebook and Google, no matter in what order Alexa put them, are the biggest players and their battle has just begun. As online marketers we should take advantage of what both have to offer.
I’m looking forward to see your opinions in the comments!
Hi Sorina,
I really enjoyed your article. I always looked at Google and Facebook as two separate entities serving entirely different purposes.
I love using Google search for all my searches and for most part I think that Google is doing a very good job. Most people do use Google for searches, especially when they are looking for something specific.
Facebook is social and interactive and I believe sales are often made through these interactions. When you conduct a search on Facebook it is not very good. Facebook is not a search engine.
I believe your answer is perfect. Internet marketers should take advantage of both of these entities. It really does not matter for us who is number 1.
Best regards,
Dita
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Hi Dita,
At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook is working on something related to search. I hope they will succeed in improving the search function in Facebook, but I also hope they will stick to searches through data from the Facebook database, because that is really needed. And let Google and it’s competitors handle the web search.
Hey Sorina,
I completely agree, you can’t compare apples to oranges and having said that, Google actually is my #1 search engine and facebook is well, I use it more than I should to be honest but hey, my greatest networking relationships have come out straight from there (and some others from commenting on other blogs).
I have never paid for traffic before but then again, I wasn’t really using squeeze pages or anything like that so I’m about to start learning about this.
What I can say though, is that I have seen MANY people spend fortunes in Google with really bad ROI numbers but you can always blame them for not doing proper market research including keyword research and meeting the basic audience needs.
I’m a big fan of Frank Kern and I really listen to the man whenever he has something to say and he says (I don’t know if it’s true though) that he stopped using all kind of advertising but Facebook Ads.
He says it’s amazing how specific can you get when you want to laser target a specific audience and the cost is really low.
I’m obviously not going to put all the eggs in one basket since I want to know how basic PPC works and I want to understand Google Adwords as well but I’m definitely going to get started with Facebook Ads.
If you have any results after your FB Ads testings are done, it would be really nice to hear about your experiences with them.
Sergio
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Sergio, last week I attended a conference about e-commerce and during 2 of the presentations came up a term I was not aware of (shame on me!): Assisted Conversions.
I use both Facebook Ads and AdWords, and when checking Assisted Conversions in my Analitycs I was amazed how people actually come to my sites, and how much interaction they do before converting…
Here is an example: Visitor X sees a Facebook Ad, clicks on it, read a little and he’s out. Sometime after he searches for something in Google, finds my site in the organic search results, read some more and he’s out again.. after he comes directly to my site, spends some time and leaves again. After he searches for something on Google again, sees my paid AdWords ad and finally converts!
Does that mean AdWords alone generated the conversion? I don’t think so!
I believe we, as marketers, should really use all the tools we have at hand to test, and only after we gather enough data decide on what combination works best for us.
Hey Sorina, that’s VERY good and valuable advice!
I wasn’t aware of Assisted Conversions either but it probably is due to never used paid traffic before.
Knowing people do not convert from the first paid ad was eye opening, I knew it took a few times of exposure but I didn’t think the same happened from paid advertising.
It only sounds logical now that you say it, thanks!
Sergio
Hey Sorina,
I spent some time at a media agency at the start of the year and for them, this is one of the big issues.
They need to be able to show their clients that they were ultimately involved in a conversion being made, even if the final click came from another direction.
At their level, they are tracking “touches” across all the campaigns they are running – TV, print, adwords and social, so they can show the flow of a typical customer journey.
Most “internet marketers” would be shocked to see the kind of resources they deploy to get these results, our tracking needs to step up a level!
Martin
You are right Martin, the reality is very cruel. There are techniques so advanced used by the big companies, most of them involving Artificial Intelligence (my favorite subject in college) that will shock the average Internet Marketer…
And that makes me wanna scream: when I see the “incredible offers” from seasoned marketers deluding the newbies that they can “do it like a boss” (how I hate this phrase) by buying an e-book or plugin with only $9.99….
Allow me to say it in different words because I think that Facebook didn’t really beat Google!
What I think is Google lost their ranking (the first spot on Alexa) because they haven’t done the right thing! I am talking here about their double-standard community guidelines.
It’s not about Alexa’s toolbar, it’s not about Facebook being better, it’s about thousandths of people around the World who’ve decided to boycott Google and YouTube last week, and in a couple of days they’s succeeded somehow to reduce the page views on the site, which leaded to the Alexa drop!
I wrote about it the same day the launched the boycott, I am actually not with the boycott because I don’t see it necessary to close a door of information for any reason, and in my post I imagined that nothing from that will happen, especially that the media made it big, and pushed tons of non documented news, but it looks like I was mistaken in a way or another!
Hesham Zebida recently posted..Arab Countries Boycott Google And YouTube… The Search Engine
Thank you Hashman for sharing this very interesting insight.
At the moment I published this post I was not aware of the boycott, but the day after I noticed the link to this post was shared on an Iranian forum. I tried to read what they were saying and you are absolutely right, using the automatic translation I discovered they were very angry at Google and happy Facebook was now #1.
Regarding the reason Google and Youtube were boycotted, my opinion is that no one should be offended for others entertainment, but I also understand that Google’s role as a moderator is a difficult one.
But I’m really impressed by the power of the people, and if I look at it just from that point of view, I’m satisfied with it.
Hey Sorina,
Interesting… Are we looking at Facebook having their own search engine out soon? I mean they have the traffic, more and more people are spending time on it and its growing at an exponential rate! Facebook is now a household name in whichever country you look at and whatever language you speak. They have all the most important features now from search to advertising and hosting websites, so I don’t think it would be much of a task for them to venture into having their own search engine. What do you think?
Mo
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Mo, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in an interview that Facebook is working on a search engine, but I don’t think it will be one like Google, Bing & co. I think it will be more “social”, based mainly on what the Facebook users share on this platform.
Is not that they can’t program their own spiders to crawl the web, but it will take time to grow an index database big enough to compete against the current top payers in web search.
And if I were them I wouldn’t want to compete with Google and Bing, I would try a different approach to give something unique to my users.
There is an interesting article here: Why Facebook’s Search Engine Won’t Be Anything Like Google’s where they explain better what I’m saying.
Yes, I see what you mean. Well if they do come out with their own search facility, I bet it will be more targeted and real time because of the detailed information they possess about their users. In the long run I think Facebook will command a higher advertising platform then Google because of its ability to reach its users faster and more accurately then Google.
Mo
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Yes Mo, Facebook has great potential, but it is a little difficult for marketers and advertisers to take benefit from it. I remember a slide I saw somewhere online, where they were comparing Google AdWords to Facebook Ads based on their efficiency, and they concluded something like this: “Google AdWords is like advertising in a shop, Facebook Ads is like advertising at a party”
Yeah! Google gets a slap! I didn’t know about a boycott either. Google Plus was supposed to be better than facebook but it hasn’t really taken off has it.
By the way I like your little contact icon on the bottom right hand side. Neat!
Kay
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Hi Kay!
Google Plus was awesome in the beginning, there were active conversations there, at that time I consider it the best place to discuss serious (professional) stuff. But now I found it more and more full of self promotion…
As for the contact icon – if you want something similar check out UserVoice – awesome service for feedback and help desk, and it also has a free plan!
One thing I think we all need to bear in mind as these sites jostle for top slot, is that they are both now quoted on the stock market.
We’ve already seen some of the behaviour changes that this has brought about inside Google and I expect we will be shocked by how Facebook evolves in the next couple of years.
Everyone need to realise that we are dealing with two of the ultimate evolutionary survivors here and if destroying us will make them money, they will do it without blinking. As always, diversifying your traffic is the only sensible move.
Martin
Correct Martin!
I read on a daily bases complains about businesses loosing big money because their website dropped in Google alter some algorithm update.
I read something yesterday about a company failing the launch of their product because Facebook removed some functionality and they couldn’t contact their fans directly and didn’t afford to pay for Facebook ads.
And they blame Google/Facebook.
Is just like me owning a restaurant and blaming the radio station for ruining my business because they didn’t play my ad and people didn’t come to try my dishes.
I remember how searching the web was before Google (yes, I am that old
) and I remember how connecting to people was before social networks… many don’t realize that now we have it so easy!
But these are just tools, should not be the pillars in our business.