Facebook Driving More Traffic Than Google To Some Big Sites

from the balance-of-power dept

Tue, Mar 10th 2009 9:08pm — Carlo Longino

Yesterday was the news that social networking and blogs had become more popular than email; today, word comes that Facebook has become the most significant source of traffic for a number of big web sites. It's overtaken Google for some sites, even with just a third of the unique visitors of the search behemoth. But, as paidContent points out, Facebook needs to figure out how to translate this traffic-generation power into revenues as a part of its bigger overall search for a monetization strategy. An issue persists for the likes of Google, too, though: as social networks start to become more powerful sources of traffic, will advertisers shift more of their dollars to them, and away from search-based keywords?

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Filed Under: social networks, traffic
Companies: facebook, google

14 Comments

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Charles Hudson, 10 Mar 2009 @ 9:37pm

Interesting article, Carlo. My sense, though, is that a lot of the traffic that Facebook is driving is content oriented (blogs, news, video, etc) and not commerce oriented. That content traffic might not prove to be as valuable as search traffic to advertisers / retailers.
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illegalprelude, 10 Mar 2009 @ 9:52pm

exactly
Exactly what Charles said. WHAT kind of sites is it giving more traffic too? Sites like "Gifts on Facebook Wall"? If so duh.
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Frugal Canadian Living, 10 Mar 2009 @ 10:11pm

Facebook will eventually out rank Google for ad traffic because ads can be catered to the individual.
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Noah Callaway, 10 Mar 2009 @ 10:32pm

Re:
Facebook may be able to cater more to the individual, but Google is still able to cater to what the user is looking for *right now*. That kind of targeting is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm not saying Facebook won't eventually out rank Google, I'm just saying Google definitely will be able to provide stiff competition...
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Michael Lockyear, 10 Mar 2009 @ 10:52pm

search mode
Search-based advertising is a winner...the user is actually LOOKING for something when they visit a search engine...and it might just be the service / product advertised in the sponsored results. Search-based advertising (and its cousin SEO) are here as long as we use search engines to find information.

On the other hand, when I visit Facebook, I am NOT looking for anything, I am merely updating my knowledge of what is happening in the lives of friends and family. I am less likely to click on ads as I am not actually in "search mode", although if a friend recommends a site I might visit it, however if everyone starts recommending sites I would probably ignore them all.
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V, 10 Mar 2009 @ 10:58pm

Will you go to Google or go to Facebook when you are "searching" for something. There's a different between "pull" and "push"...
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porkster, 10 Mar 2009 @ 11:45pm

And the reason is....
Google has turned to crap lately, I use to be able to find what I want on the first page of results, now its more likely the 3rd or 4th or never.

Go back to running a search engine Google!
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Relonar, 11 Mar 2009 @ 12:07am

Re: search mode
It goes both ways,
in 'search' I'm often looking for a specific piece of content. If searching for information keyword ads get in the way of sites that could be much more beneficial so I tend to glance, and then leave it at that. Opposed to searching for a product or service, then keyword ads are fairly relevant. say, an ad from national semiconductor if I search for electronic components.
When checking social network I guess you could call it 'browse' mode. I'm looking all over the place taking in all sorts of random information. Mostly looking for cues that match my interests. Now if an ad was matched to mine or my friends interests it would have a very large draw.
Its all about what service you offer that is the best factor determining where you put your advertising money. A machine shop would do much better on a search engine, whereas a media service, pop retail, etc. would do much better on the social networks.
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PaulT (profile), 11 Mar 2009 @ 2:46am

Re: And the reason is....
You're doing it wrong... at least, I never have any problems finding what I want. Maybe you need to refine your searches?
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V, 11 Mar 2009 @ 2:55am

Re: Re: And the reason is....
Or try www.givemebackmygoogle.com
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Blatant Coward, 11 Mar 2009 @ 3:30am

Facebook the new Google?
Ok time to start suing Facebook for making my servers work so hard.
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Weird Harold, 11 Mar 2009 @ 8:12am

Advertisers go where they get the most value for money, not just the most exposure. Facebook is very good for driving traffic to social topics raised by members, not to advertising. In fact, one look at their ad base will tell you that facebook isn't exactly raking in the cash.

It all depends what you are selling, I guess.
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Social Networks, 11 Mar 2009 @ 1:42pm

Social Networking
Seeing as that there are now so many social networks catering to such a wide range of niches, my biggest problem is finding ones relevant to me and related to my specific interests or product niches. Google seems to be inefficient and returns alot of irrelevant results. A cool resource that I use is this search engine designed specifically to find social networking sites.
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James, 9 Jun 2010 @ 7:11am

microsoft?
if microsoft buys more into this then bing is set to make a much bigger come back in the the search world.. Is microsoft bing going to make a turnaround simular to apple during the 90's till now
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