Chinese video-sharing app, TikTok, has beaten Google to become the most popular website for 2021, according to Cloudflare, an IT security company.
In 2020, Google was the most popular domain followed by social media giant Facebook with TikTok ranked at 7 according to Cloudflare but now, there has been a dramatic shift in rankings.
“It was on February 17, 2021, that TikTok got the top spot for a day. Back in March, TikTok got a few more days and also in May, but it was after August 10, 2021, that TikTok took the lead on most days.
There were some days when Google was #1, but October and November were mostly TikTok’s days, including on Thanksgiving (November 25) and Black Friday (November 26),” the company wrote in its year review blog.
Websites ranked below Google in 2021 include Facebook.com (3), Microsoft.com (4), Apple.com (5) and e-commerce major Amazon at number 6. Meta’s Whatsapp ranked at number 10 while Twitter took the 9th spot. Meanwhile, streaming platforms Netflix and video-sharing app Youtube took the number 7 and 8 spots, respectively.
Although Google did manage to take the lead for a few days, TikTok dominated important holidays like Thanksgiving that happened on November 25 and also on Black Friday that was on November 26.
“We can see that TikTok took Facebook from its crown of the most popular social media website-domain in our ranking,” Cloudflare said.
TikTok tops search rankings in 2021 beating Google
The video-sharing experienced a massive surge in users during the COVID-19 pandemic, clocking 1 billion monthly active users globally. According to Cloudfare, the top 10 most popular domains in 2021 are:
- TikTok.com
- Google.com
- Facebook.com
- Microsoft.com
- Apple.com
- Amazon.com
- Netflix.com
- YouTube.com
- Twitter.com
- WhatsApp.com
Although YouTube still boasts more users and total videos watched than the Chinese app, the rising platform has surpassed YouTube in one crucial metric: U.S. users on the app spend more time watching more videos than U.S. YouTube users do on their site. In short, they get drawn in faster and stay for longer.
However, the app was banned in India due to security concerns. The United States, Europe, Brazil and Southeast Asia continue to be the biggest markets for the popular short-video app.
TikTok, known in China as Douyin, hosts a variety of short-form user videos, from genres like pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance, and entertainment with durations from 15 seconds to three minutes.
It was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it became available worldwide only after merging with another Chinese social media service, Musical.ly, on 2 August 2018.
The video-sharing platform is owned by China technology giant ByteDance. The company appointed ByteDance’s CFO Shouzi Chew, a Singaporean national, as the new chief executive officer of the company earlier this year.
Source: Spurzine
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