Where netizens converge: Most visited websites in the world

In today's world of internet, the most visited thing is not a place, person or physical being at all, rather a website; and a handful of net-giants have unmatched dominance in terms of visitors.

The top three most visited websites in terms of monthly visits - Google (92.5 billion), YouTube (34.6 billion) and Facebook (25.5 billion), rake in 152 billion visits monthly - outpacing the next 47 websites combined, according to the Visual Capitalist.

As the pandemic transformed everything from work, learning, communication, and shoping - a majority of these activities migrated online.

Servicing over two trillion search queries annually through its network, Alphabet-owned Google ranks highest with its flagship domain, Google.com. Google derives approximately 80% of its earnings from ad revenues.

Coming in second, social networking platform Facebook has a user base of 2.7 billion. On average, users spend 34 minutes on the site daily, while 36% of users say it's also where they get their news—higher than any other social network.

As the leading search engine in China, Baidu received 5.6 billion visitors in November. Baidu is also branching out its business— venturing into electric vehicles (EVs) in a partnership with China-based automaker Geely. As video conferencing vaulted in demand during the pandemic, Zoom, launched into the most visited websites with 2.7 billion visitors monthly. Similarly, TikTok became a freshly minted addition.

The US remains a dominant player. While its reach is highly concentrated on a global level, just a handful of companies own a majority of these sites. Microsoft for instance, owns seven of the top sites in the world including LinkedIn and Live.com. Amazon, on the other hand owns five including Twitch.tv along with popular Amazon-focused domains in Japan, UK, and Germany.

China holds five top websites: Baidu QQ, Bilibili, TikTok and AliExpress. The Tencent-owned QQ.com, ranks as the top news site in China, with over 981 million monthly visits. Like WeChat, QQ also provides a popular messaging platform.

Just four of the most visited websites globally are based in both Russia and Japan, while the rest of the world account for 10 top sites altogether.

Most visited websites in the world in terms of montly visitors:

Between June 2019 and November 2020, Google's monthly visitors increased 52.9%. Among the most visited websites globally, this rate of growth falls only behind Instagram at 89.1% and Twitter at 67.1%.

Wikipedia a non-profit website that originated in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales realized over 30% growth.

While large tech companies have only accelerated their market share—Google makes up roughly 90% of the search ad market—several regulatory bodies are placing greater scrutiny on them. An October 2020 antitrust report suggested that Big Tech is in fact anti-competitive, drawing comparisons with oil tycoons of the 19th and 20th centuries.