Facebook's Monthly Traffic Down By Nearly 50 Percent In 2 Years

10/08/2018

The social giant Facebook is not having a good time.

After experiencing a decline in user growth and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media's web traffic continues to slide down from 8.5 billion in 2016 to 4.7 billion in 2018.

This is according to a study by market research firm SimilarWeb when it analyzed Facebook's monthly page visit.

With this huge drop, Facebook is losing its second-place position on SimilarWeb's global Top Websites Ranking list, to YouTube which had 4.5 billion visits in July.

This makes Google in owning the top two spots, as Facebook slides down to number three.

SimilarWeb's Top Websites Ranking shows Google and YouTube owning the top two spots
SimilarWeb's Worldwide Top Websites Ranking shows Google and YouTube owning the top two spots

Apparently, the cause of the decline has more to do with its mobile success.

According to SimilarWeb, more Facebook’s users are turning to mobile apps instead of using a web browser to access the social network. In fact, Facebook app usage is growing and total engagement on the social network is up.

But still, the increase is not enough to make up for that loss, the study said, as SimilarWeb predicts a "paradigm shift" in the world's largest websites. This suggests the possible "peak social" where Facebook stops growing and won't be larger than it is at the moment.

SimilarWeb argues that Facebook must be evaluated not as a social network on its own, but also as part of the broader Facebook "ecosystem" that includes Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.