For the First Time in 10 Years, Google Is Not the Most Popular Website
You might be able to guess which site took the top spot.
For years, Google has dominated the top spot on the internet. Between 2011 and 2020, the search engine and internet powerhouse consistently had the most users, according to tracking sites like Cloudflare. This year, Google and all of its many entities (Youtube, Gmail, Docs, etc.) moved down to the number two slot of the most popular website globally.
In the number one spot? It's not PornHub, which was my first guess. It's also not Twitter, Amazon, or Facebook. No, we have a dark horse winner: TikTok. Moving up from the seventh spot in 2020, TikTok and its many viral trends and recipes beat out Google in 2021, according to QZ. Facebook, previously the second most popular website in 2020, was bumped down to the third spot. TikTok claims it has one billion users monthly.
If you think about it, it is not too surprising. TikTok is everywhere now, and it is not just Gen Z that has been lured to the platform. Chefs, grandmothers, celebrities, parents, and even Boomers have swarmed to the app en masse. You can scroll for hours watching videos of sketches, little snippets of life in other places, babies rolling around with kittens, and endless life hacks.
Opheli Garcia Lawler is a staff writer at Thrillist. Follow her on Twitter @opheligarcia and Instagram @opheligarcia.