According to Hitwise data released today, Facebook was the most visited website in the United States for 2010. Facebook.com took 8.93% of site visits between January and November 2010. Google.com came second at 7.19%, Yahoo! Mail third with 3.52%, Yahoo.com came fourth at 3.30%, and YouTube was at fifth with 2.65%.
Facebook beat Google.com out of its crown this year. However, according to Hitwise data, all Google sites combined cover up 9.85% of all site visits. Which makes Google as a whole still more popular than Facebook.
The combination of Google properties accounted for 9.85 percent of all U.S. visits. Facebook properties accounted for 8.93 percent, and Yahoo! properties accounted for 8.12 percent. The top 10 Websites accounted for 33 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010, an increase of 12 percent versus 2009.
The term “Facebook” was the most searched term this year. And the term “facebook login” came second, from ninth place last year. The analysis revealed the most searched terms were social-networking related, which accounted for 4.18% of the top 50 searches.
Top searches from various other categories include:
Personality – top 5 people searches
1. Kim Kardashian
2. Oprah
3. Rush Limbaugh
4. Miley Cyrus
5. Glenn Beck
Movie Titles – top 5 searches from within Movies category:
1. Star Wars
2. Paranormal Activity 2
3. Avatar
4. Transformers 3
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow
Music – top 5 searched for artists/bands:
1. Lady Gaga
2. Justin Beiber
3. Eminem
4. Taylor Swift
5. Michael Jackson
Branded Destinations top 5 search terms:
1. Disney World
2. Disneyland
3. Six Flags
4. Universal Studios Orlando
5. Great Wolf Lodg
Top TV show searches from Television category
1. Dancing with the Stars
2. American Idol
3. Young and the Restless
The top generic search term was "hulu" within Television category
Sports – the top searched for athlete was Tiger Woods and the top sports team was the Dallas Cowboys from within the Sports category.
News and Media – the top searched for person was Bret Michaels followed by Tiger Woods and Sandra Bullock within the News and Media category in 2010.
Real Estate – the search terms "houses for rent" and "homes for rent", combined topped the combined searches for "houses for sale" and "homes for sale" in 2010 within the Real Estate category.
- Realtor.com was the top search term overall for Real Estate category.
Employment – Indeed accounted for 2.47 percent of all searches in the US among the top 50 terms for the Employment category in 2010 when combining common search terms – e.g., indeed and indeed.com.
In 2009, Facebook was the third most visited website, getting to the top this year came as a surprise. Although this was predicted before, and Hitwise came to the same conclusion back in March. [via TheNextWeb]
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