What is the best website in the world? It’s a question many of us have asked ourselves, with countless different answers depending on who you ask. But if we use popularity to determine the best site, the answer is clear.
Below we list some of the best websites in the world, from search engines and social media to streaming sites and online marketplaces.
Alongside these popular sites, we’ve also highlighted what they’re about, why they’re so popular, and some tips you can learn from them for your web design project.
We’ve also highlighted what these websites are all about and why they’re so popular, as well as some tips you can use for your web design project. Building a popular website is much more than just good website design. These 20 examples should give you plenty of information on how to build your future popularity contender!
Read on to discover the most popular websites in our definitive list of the 20 best websites of 2022.
We present the 20 most popular websites
Table of Contents
There is no doubt that Google is the most popular search engine, but this year it remains in the first place as the most popular website on the Internet. Over 40,000 searches are reported on Google every second – that’s over 1.2 trillion searches per year! No matter what anyone wants to know, Google is the target. Not only that, but Google now also serves as a hub for a plethora of other web services including Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and many more.
Youtube
The site has jumped up two spots on the list this year as its impressive stats keep climbing. Almost 5 billion videos are viewed on YouTube every day. YouTube has over 30 million daily visitors. Over 300 minutes of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. We expect YouTube to be in the top three for a long time to come.
Amazon
Amazon is still one of the three most popular websites on the internet, down one place from last year, and dominates the world of online shopping. At Amazon.com, website visitors can shop for their favorite books, clothing, home goods, groceries, and more! And if they sign up for Prime membership, those purchases can be delivered to their front door within a day or two – for free! With such a wide range of goods and amazing services, it’s no wonder that Amazon is one of the leaders this year.
Facebook is the leading social media platform worldwide. Its innovative design has changed the way people communicate and live their lives. The site boasts an impressive 2.37 billion monthly users. On average, 1.66 billion people log into Facebook daily and are considered daily active users (Facebook DAU) as of January 2020, representing a 9% year-over-year increase.
Yahoo
Yahoo.com is still going strong. Yahoo has been the leading search engine and news source for a very long time, and it can still hold its own as one of the most popular websites online. However, the model has changed a bit as it has found more traction for news, articles, finance, etc. compared to a pure search engine.
reddit.com claims to be “the front page of the internet”. Created as a site for social sharing and social interaction, Reddit.com has become extremely popular with internet users of all ages and is our single biggest mover since last year, up 11 places! On Reddit, users can upload their favorite articles, memes, and graphics for the enjoyment of other users. Each post is then voted on and ranked by popularity – with the hope of making the front page and gaining views.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia.org is an online encyclopedia that has articles on almost every historical event, place, and topic you can think of. Many people turn to Wikipedia for answers to basic questions and research for beginners. Wikipedia is being built at a rate of more than 1.8 edits per second by editors from around the world. More than 13.89 million visitors visit the site every day, making it one of the most popular sites on the Internet.
eBay
In 1995, Pierre Omidyar, an online hobbyist, launched AuctionWeb as a section on his website. The site’s first successful transaction was a broken laser pointer that sold for $14.83. By 1997, AuctionWeb had changed its name to eBay, and today the e-commerce company has branches in 30 countries. eBay boasts 138 million accounts, and nearly 35 percent of US mobile users have downloaded the company’s app to their phones. eBay is headquartered in San Jose, California, and claimed over $10 billion in revenue in its most recent reporting round.
Bing
Microsoft Bing may not be the most used search engine in the world, but it is climbing the charts. First debuted by Steve Ballmer at the All Things Digital conference in 2009, Bing is today the third most used search engine in the world, behind only Google and China’s Baidu. About 33 percent of Americans start Bing for their online searches. In addition, Yahoo! uses the Bing engine for multiple platforms and products. The United Kingdom and Taiwan are the company’s second and third largest markets after the United States.
Netflix
Wanting to emulate the Amazon.com model, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph created Netflix in 1997. What started as a DVD mail-order service is now one of the best subscription streaming services on the planet. The platform currently boasts 148 million users worldwide, with only China, Syria, North Korea, and Crimea denied access. However, international growth outpaced domestic gains. Since 2015, the number of new registrations outside the United States has quadrupled. However, the creation of government accounts grew at a rate of less than 50 percent. Regardless, Netflix is an online powerhouse that shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Office
A lightweight cloud-based suite of Microsoft Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, Office.com launched in 2008 and has gone through several iterations and name changes. Today, it is the 11th most popular site on our list. Its popularity is related to its prevalence in offices around the world in addition to the software’s popularity among freelancers. Office.com also supports Outlook, People, Calendar, and OneDrive.
Instructure
Instructure may not be a household name, but this education technology company ranks as the 12th most accessible online platform for 2020. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Instructure was founded by two BYU graduate students. Instructure is a website publisher and developer. a learning management program called Canvas. It also manages the Canvas Network, a massive open online course platform.
Shopify
Shopify allows businesses and entrepreneurs to build digital storefronts using a WYSIWYG interface – without coding knowledge. The Canadian company offers several useful features, including a marketing messaging feature, payment processing, shipping services, and various customer engagement tools. What started as a small startup in 2004 is now a multinational corporation with over $1.5 billion in revenue in 2019. With more than one million sellers and businesses relying on the platform to run their operations, and the site has processed over $100 billion in revenue over its lifetime, Shopify landed at number 13 on our “Most Popular Websites” list.
Twitch
The 14th most popular site is Twitch. Twitch, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, entered the scene in 2011. A live streaming site popular among video game enthusiasts, Twitch now broadcasts esports events and tournaments in addition to account holders’ streams. In recent years, the platform has attracted all types of content producers from independent news shows to movie review channels. By 2018, 2.2 million broadcasters had created accounts on Twitch, and 15 million users access the platform daily. To date, the site works with more than 27,000 third-party channels. The vast majority—81.5 percent—of Twitch users are male, and 55 percent fall into the coveted 18-to-34 advertising demographic.
CNN
Mogul Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network — aka CNN — in 1980. At the time, it was the first American channel to offer 24-hour news coverage. As of 2018, 90.1 million American households subscribed to the channel via cable packages. CNN launched online in 1995 and is now one of the most popular news websites in the world. The platform is a combination of professional news, blogs, and live broadcasts. As of 2016, CNN maintains four versions of its website: an American version, an Arabic version, a Spanish version, and an international version. According to statistics from the CNN press center, its digital platform is the “No. 1 online news destination across all platforms with more unique visitors and video launches than any competitor”.
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