Via FriendFeed, an interesting analysis of Internet traffic at compete.com. They set out to test the assertion that the "Long Tail" of low-traffic sites account for more traffic than they used to, and found exactly the opposite-- the share of all pageviews for the top ten domains increased from 29% to 40% between 2001 and 2008.
What's really interesting is the reason why:
The driver of this Top Domain growth can be summed up in two words "social networks". If you were to remove MySpace and Facebook from consideration in 2006 (also removing their pageviews from the total) top domains would only account for 33% of total pageviews - basically on par with 2001. [Ed.: I get 28%, looking at their numbers, but one of us is probably making a silly arithmetic error]
The internet has grown rapidly and its tail keeps getting longer, but the social web naturally promotes a top heavy head. Ebay works because sellers know they will find a healthy volume of buyers. MySpace works because I know there is a good chance I'll find my 5th grade girlfriend. The network is the viral growth, but it's also the interaction agent (on steroids)...
(I have no experience with MySpace, but from dealing with Facebook, another factor might be that these sites work really hard to keep you within their network. I'm often struck by the way Facebook tries to contain everything.)
The other interesting thing about this is the list of names. Did "neopets.com" really command 1% of all Internet traffic back in 2001? "passport.com"? Wow.
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- "the share of all pageviews for the top ten domains increased from 29% to 40% between 2001 and 2008."
No. Your linked source is an article from Dec. 2006, and the numbers are from 2001-2006. A quick look at the site didn't give me anything newer though (It's probably there, but I didn't want to spend much time on finding it.)
What got me looking closer was the absence of YouTube from the list.
I know passport.com. They do central account management for all microsoft .net sites like hotmail and msn messenger so no surprise at their traffic.
Don't know about neopets, though. I looked at the site and it's not much; you need to register to see more. Seems to be aimed at very small children so perhaps it's all you can access from china. Good stop-motion animation on the video page.
Maybe it's the front for a massive kiddy porn ring...