Facebook's Rise Is a Big Deal for Media Sites. For the Rest of the Web, Not So Much.

March 21, 2011 at 10:07 am PT

Question: Is Google’s influence on other Web sites shrinking as Facebook grows? Or is the search giant more important than ever?

Answer: Yes.

Confused? Sure you are. But this is one of those brain-teasers that’s easier to understand once you step back a bit: Google is just as important as it ever has ever been–and in some cases more so–in driving traffic to many Web sites.

But for certain kinds of sites, its influence, while still enormous, has diminished a bit.

To put a fine point on it: The reason that Web sites that write stories about other Web sites are writing about Google’s stall and Facebook’s rise is because it seems to be true–for some media sites. But not for most of the Web.

Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney breaks it down in his newest report, which relies on comScore’s data that shows referring traffic for big Web sites. Conclusion: Google ranks as the top traffic source for 74 percent of the top properties he surveyed. And between January 2010 and January 2011, Google’s referral share increased for 69 percent of the sites Mahaney looked at.

But the two categories where Google’s influence seems to be flagging are health and media sites–particularly media sites. Note the summary chart below, which shows that for 80 percent of the top media sites, Google’s influence has diminished in the last year.

But even that drop, which seems clear-cut, is a bit fuzzy if you dig into the numbers. While Mahaney finds examples of many media properties that have seen referrals from Google decline while Facebook’s increased, the only one where he’s confident drawing a connection between the two is the Glam Media network. Glam saw Google’s share of referrals drop from 17 percent to 13 percent, and Facebook’s jumped from 5 percent to 9 percent.

But Facebook isn’t the only one gaining share in Mahaney’s analysis. Sometimes his data shows Microsoft and Yahoo inching up as well. That’s certainly counterintuitive, but then again these are usually small moves–a percentage point here and there–which makes it hard to string together a cohesive narrative.

Which won’t stop Web sites that write about other Web sites–just like this one!–from trying.

Tagged with: advertising, blogs, Citigroup, comScore, digital, Facebook, Glam Media, Google, Internet, Mark Mahaney, MediaMemo, Microsoft, Peter Kafka, Yahoo

comments so far. Add yours.

http://www.moneymakerlegend.com Fazal Mayar

Of course it’s a big deal for media sites as facebook is really hard to beat, or will a site like twitter surpass them in future? i doubt it.
http://www.yourbrandplan.com davidsandusky

We find search engines crawl with vigor deep into a site and anything not time sensitive has longer shelf life / multiple page views. Major benefit for non-media sites like mine.

What I find very interesting is how social media like FB and twitter cause traffic resulting in downstream back to the social media. Google 80% (referring, non organic traffic) for me results in 50% downstream to Google. FB is the same up and downstream meaning they go back to the SM source that brought them to my site. This stat alone fascinates me to the point of strategic moves – while social media brings good traffic and some business, search engine brings more of both.
Anonymous

This article actually misses the mark. First, most companies that are utilizing social media are not doing it correctly. Social media is not about your one day only sale, it is about building the relationship with you customer. Second, you are falling into the trap that most advertisers have since there has been advertising. Most people do not respond to the first, second or even the third time that they see something. It is somewhere down the line in the seven to ten times area that people will decide to take action. So are the first six to nine time ineffective? No, not at all. Keeping in front of your customer helps them build confidence in their buying decision. Finally, as people click through from a well build social media page to your website it helps build traffic, one of the important denominators in determining you search ranking, so the more traffic you can generate through social media, the higher your ranking on Google, and therefore the more confident your decision to pick a particular vendor. Is Google still the 800 pound gorilla? Certainly, no one can dispute that. Is social media an effective means of promoting your brand and keeping in front of prospective new and repeat customers? Without a doubt,