Wikipedia.org is more popular than...

This page compares Wikipedia's traffic with that of other websites as recorded by alexa.com. This information is based on the actions of webusers all over the world (unlike the hitwise data often quoted in the American media), but the webusers whose browsing produces the rankings are a self-selecting group, so Alexa does not claim that they are precisely accurate. The Alexa toolbar is only available in English and only to Internet Explorer users.

This page should not be taken too seriously. The domain names listed below are not necessarily considered Wikipedia's competition; in fact, it actively collaborates with some of them. Finally, the web presence of many organisations is not nearly as important to them as other publication/distribution channels (DVDs, print, storefronts etc.)

Background information:

Current position

Wikipedia's latest 3-month rank: 9 (on 17 May 2007)

Wikipedia's latest weekly rank: 8 (on 8 August 2007)

Wikipedia's ranking charts: last 30 days; last 3 years.

Wikipedia's best daily rank to date: 8 (1^st time on 20 February 2007)

Wikipedia reached the top 20 on a 3-month basis on 2 March 2006. All the sites which are now ahead of Wikipedia on a 3-month basis are in English.

Jumps in usage are now much more clearly reflected by reach and pageview numbers than by ranking, as the ranking only goes up a few places now even if many more people visit. In December 2005 Wikipedia's pageviews per million share gained about 500 to 1,600 (meaning it was getting 0.16% of all pageviews recorded by Alexa), which was as much as its total score at around 31 March 2005, but its 3 month ranking improved just two places during the month.

Wikipedia's ranking is variable, and in May 2006 the weekly ranking fell behind the three month ranking for the first time for a very long time, or perhaps the first time ever. Nevertheless, the ranking continues to improve.

Wikipedia's Alexa ranking milestones (3 month average)

Milestone	Date	3 Month average	Weekly average
500	11 October 2004	497	288
300	28 November 2004	292	182
200	7 January 2004	199	143
100	29 April 2005	100	68
50	6 September 2005	50	40
30	12 January 2006	30	20
20	2 March 2006	20	18
15	11 October 2006	15	13
10	26 March 2007	10	9
9	17 May 2007	9	9
8	23 October 2007	8	8

Selected ranking jumps

Jan 2003: A Slashdotting and other media coverage resulting from the English WP's '100,000 article' press release.
Aug 2003: Featured on CNN's TechWatch television program, on CNN's homepage for a day, and on their Tech homepage for another day.
Jan 2004: New servers come online.
Aug 2004: New machines come online.
Dec 2005/Jan 2006: Large jump facilitated by extra server capacity and helped by a surge of publicity.

Note on Alexa rankings

Some websites are probably more popular than their Alexa rankings indicate because a disproportionate amount of their traffic likely comes from web users that cannot install the Alexa toolbar (non Windows/Internet Explorer users) or are not likely to install the toolbar (non-English speaking users and people concerned about computer privacy). However, it should also be noted that Wikipedia.org may be more popular than its Alexa ranking indicates since two thirds of all Wikipedia articles are in languages other than English, and there may be a bias among Wikipedia users for browsers that do not report their traffic to Alexa, compared with the general population.

Sites with higher 3 month rankings than Wikipedia

Since Wikipedia is now in the top 10 of the Alexa rankings, it is easier to look at the ones it has not yet passed on a 3 month ranking basis. You can see Alexa's list of the top 500 global websites here. It is updated about once a week.

Wikipedia compared with baidu.com, orkut.com, facebook.com and hi5.com

Sites Wikipedia beats some days

These are sites that Wikipedia is beating sometimes on its good days or has been beating consistently for a short time, but not for long enough to have a higher 3-month ranking.

facebook.com (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 7] - facebook.com has been consistently ahead of Wikipedia since the middle of August 2007

Orkut.com (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 8] - Online community related to Google. Wikipedia is ahead of Orkut.com most of the days since the end of August 2007.

Sites beating Wikipedia some days

These are sites that Wikipedia is beaten by sometimes, but not for long enough to have a higher 3-month ranking.

hi5.com (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 10]

Sites still consistently ahead of Wikipedia

Yahoo (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 1] - this is the main U.S. based yahoo.com site. Many other countries, including other English speaking countries, have their own versions which Alexa ranks separately.

Google (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 2] - this is the main U.S. based google.com site. Many other countries, including other English speaking countries, have their own versions which Alexa ranks separately.

MSN (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 3] - this is the main U.S. based msn.com site. Many other countries, including other English speaking countries, have their own versions which Alexa ranks separately.

YouTube.com (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 4] - YouTube.com has been consistently ahead of Wikipedia since mid-June 2006.

Windows Live (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 5] - Another Microsoft site. Live has been consistently ahead of Wikipedia since mid-April 2006.

Myspace.com (website | graph) [8 October 2007: 6]

Wikipedia.org is more popular than...

This section lists sites which wikipedia.org beats on three month average rating. Note that due to the large number of websites and Wikipedia's high ranking, it is probably easier to count the sites that rank higher than Wikipedia, also note that this list is in noway complete.

Search engines, web portals and ISP sites

Search engines, web portals and ISP sites make up the largest group of sites ranked higher than Wikipedia, but it is ahead of many well known ones:

Baidu.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking September 2007.
qq.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2007.
Yahoo Japan (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking April 2007.
新浪 (sina.com.cn) (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking February 2007.
网易 (163.com) (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking November 2006.
搜狐 (sohu.com) (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking November 2006.
Yahoo.com.cn (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking October 2006.
Passport.net (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking July 2006.
Google UK (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2006.
Google Japan* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking March 2006.
Naver.com* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking March 2006.
AOL (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006, but Alexa states that it greatly under records AOL's traffic as AOL has its own browser.
3721.com* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006.
Tom.com* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006.
nate.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006.
daum.net (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006.
Rakuten.co.jp (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking January 2006.
Google Canada (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking November 2005.
comcast.net (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking November 2005.
Google España* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking November 2005.
google.de* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking October 2005
China.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking October 2005
MSN Japan* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking September 2005
google.fr* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking July 2005
Xinhua* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking July 2005
Free.fr* (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005
myway.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
searchscout.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
google.com.au (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
Lycos.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
Ask Jeeves, aka ask.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
google.it (website) Ahead on 3 month ranking April 2005.
wanadoo.fr (website | graph) Ahead on 3 month ranking April 2005.
Walla.co.il (in Hebrew) (website | graph) Ahead on three month ranking by April 2005.
AltaVista (website | graph) Three month ranking higher by March 2005.
msn.co.uk (website | graph) - Since Mar 2005
miniforum.org (in traditional Chinese) (website | graph) Ahead on three month ranking 6th March 2005. Passing this made Wikipedia 2nd among dot-orgs.
excite.com (website | graph ) Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking by January 2005
dmoz.org (website | graph) Passed at the end of September 2004.
Hotbot (website | graph) - Since March 2004
Mysearch.com (website | graph) - Since March 2004; taking a hard tumble.
Looksmart.com (website | graph) - Since late January 2004
Onelook.com (website | graph) - Since February 2003
www.arxiv.org (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer
google.com.hk (website) - Since Jan 2005
google.nl (website) - Since Jan 2005
google.com.tr (website) - Since Oct 2004
freesoft.org (website | graph) - unknown/forever
EncycloZine (website | graph) - unknown/forever
Beakman's World (website | graph) - Since 3nd quarter 2003
Weather Underground (website | graph) - Since 1st quarter 2004

Reference sites

Wikipedia is ahead of all other reference sites.

Wikipedia's pageviews compared to those of about.com, answers.com, britannica.com and reference.com over the last three years are shown here.

imdb.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking October 2005
mapquest.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking October 2005
about.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 monthly ranking July 2005
reference.com (including dictionary.com, website | graph) Ahead on three month ranking by April 2005.
NIH (website | graph) Wikipedia well ahead by November 2004.
Internet archive (website | graph) Ahead since October 2004
Merriam Webster Dictionary (website | graph) - similar since late March 2004, Wikipedia consistently ahead since early May 2004.
multimap.com (website | graph) - Overtaken late March 2004, but only consistently since May.
NASA (website | graph) - NASA jumped ahead in January 2004, but with the cooling of interest in the MER mission, Wikipedia moved ahead in early April 2004.
NOAA (website | graph) - Since March 2004
Library of Congress (website | graph) - Since December 2003
Refdesk.com (website | graph) - Since 3rd quarter 2003
Crosswalk Bible Study Tools (website | graph) - Since 3rd quarter 2003
Scholastic.com (website | graph) - Since 3rd quarter 2003
HowStuffWorks.com (website | graph) - Since August 2003 (reliably since October 2003)
The National Geographic Society (website | graph) - Since 3rd quarter 2003
Bartleby.com (website | graph) - Since July 2003
Infoplease.com (website | graph) - Since July 2003
Britannica.com (website | graph) - Since June 2003. Since January 2006 Britannica's average daily pageviews score has been less than 1% of Wikipedia's.
YourDictionary.com (website | graph) - Since 2nd quarter 2003
Whatis.com (website | graph) - Since June 2003
Encyclopedia.com (website | graph) - Since April 2003

SciAm.com (website | graph) - Since February 2003

The Old Farmer's Almanac (website | graph) - Since 1st quarter 2003

HistoryChannel.com (website | graph) - Since March 2003

Biography.com (website | graph) - Since March 2003

4Reference.com (website | graph) - Since February 2003 or longer

ScienceDaily.com (website | graph) - Since mid-January 2003

1911Encyclopedia.com (website | graph) - Since before December 2002

StraightDope.com (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

Open-site.org (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

Mathworld.Wolfram.com (website | graph) and Scienceworld.Wolfram.com (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)

Nupedia.org (website | graph) - Since (long) before December 2002

Urbandictionary.com (website | graph)

Encyclopedia Smithsonian (website | graph) - Since 2nd quarter 2003

National Science Foundation (website | graph) - Since before 2003

University Sites

Wikipedia is ahead of all university sites.

Harvard.edu (website | graph) - Since November 2003
MIT.edu (website | graph) - Since November 2003
Cornell.edu (website | graph) - Since September 2003
www.cam.ac.uk (website | graph) - Since Q2 2003 (note: cambridge.org is the University Press. The site for the university itself is www.cam.ac.uk)

News and media sites

Wikipedia is ahead of all English language news and media sites, excluding youtube. Some of the Chinese and Japanese language sites which are ahead of Wikipedia may fall into this category too, though it appears that most of them are portals or search engines.

BBC (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking March 2006.
go.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006.
CNN (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking February 2006.
The Weather Channel (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking August 2005.
nba.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
New York Times (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking April 2005.
macromedia.com (website | graph) - Since Jan 2005
real.com (website | graph) - Since Jan 2005
foxsports.com (website | graph) - Since January 2005
usatoday.com (website | graph) - Since November 2004.
CCTV (website | graph) - China's largest television station - Since December 2004
FOXNews.com (website | graph) - Since November 2004
Drudge Report (website | graph) - Since November 2004
WashingtonPost.com (website | graph ) - Since November 2004.
Al Jazeera (website | graph) - consistently since August 2004.
Boston.com (Boston Globe newspaper) (website | graph) - Since May 2004
Reuters.com (website | graph) sporadically since April 2004
MSNBC.com (website | graph) Since April 2004
WSJ.com (website | graph) - sporadically since Feb 2004, well ahead since April 2004
LATimes.com (website | graph) - Since February 2004
ChicagoTribune.com (website | graph) - Since February 2004
Salon.com (website | graph) - neck-and-neck since September, well ahead since December 2003, except for one day when the WP site completely crashed.
Time.com (website | graph) - Since October 2003 (reliably since January)
AP.org (website | graph) - Since early September 2003 (reliably since early November 2003)
TheRegister.co.uk (website | graph) - Since August 2003
tf1.fr (first French channel) (website | graph) - Since August 2003
NPR.org (website | graph) - Since July 2003 (reliably since August)
Heise.de (large German IT news site) (website | graph) - Since June 2003

Community/Organizational sites

The only English language sites in this category ahead of Wikipedia are orkut.com and myspace.com. Some of the Chinese and Japanese language sites which are ahead of Wikipedia may fall into it too.

Blogger.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking March 2006.
craigslist.org (website | graph) - wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking December 2005. In passing Craigslist, Wikipedia became the number one .org according to Alexa.
xanga.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking November 2005.
match.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
friendster.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
download.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
classmates.com (website | graph) - Since December 2004
Open diary (website | graph) Passed consistently in Oct 2004.
Livejournal.com* (website | graph) Consistently since May 2004.
Friendsreunited.co.uk (website | graph ) - Since early 2004
Slashdot.org* (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking February 2004
Freshmeat.net* (website | graph) - Since March 2003 (reliably since May)
GNU.org* (website | graph) - Since March 2003
Beliefnet.com (website | graph) - Since March 2003 (but equal in June 2003)

Kuro5hin.org* (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

Linux.org* (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)

Linux.com* (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

Everything2.com (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

OpenOffice.org* (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

Debian.org* (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer

cnet.com (includes shareware.com) (website | graph) - Since October 2004

sourceforge.net* (website | graph) Passed consistently in October 2004.

Corporate sites

There is no corporate site ahead of Wikipedia apart from companies whose website is the main focus of their business and various web portals.

eBay (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3-month ranking November 2006.
Microsoft.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3-month ranking October 2006.
Amazon.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3-month ranking August 2006.
Alibaba.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3-month ranking February 2006.
Fastclick (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking January 2006
eBay UK (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking December 2005
Doubleclick (website | graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking October 2005.
eBay China (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking September 2005
apple.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking July 2005
dell.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking July 2005
netscape.com* (website | graph) Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking June 2005.
expedia.com (website) Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
bankofamerica.com (website) Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
Hewlett Packard. (website | graph) Ahead on 3 month ranking April 2005.
Walmart: (website | graph) Three month ranking higher March 2005.
Amazon UK (website | graph) Three month ranking higher January 2005.
Shockwave.com (website | graph) Ahead for good since November 2004.
Freeservers.com (website | graph) Since October 2004.
Infospace.com (website | graph) Since October 2004.
eBay Canada: (website | graph) Since October 2004.
Warner Brothers (website | graph) Since August 2004.
voila.fr (website | graph) - Since May 2004
Sun.com (website | graph) - Since late May 2004
CafePress.com (website | graph) - Since March 2004
Sears.com (website | graph) - Since March 2004
ibm.com (website |graph) Passed considerably in daily rank at the end of September 2004, 3 mo. rank since Q4, 2004
Intel.com (website | graph) - sporadically since January 2004, ahead since March 2004
Amazon.de* (website | graph) - Since February 2004
priceline.com (website | graph) - Since March 2004
eBay France (website | graph) - Since November 2003
Electronic Arts (website | graph) - similar since September 2003, Wikipedia more clearly ahead since February 2004
Bomis.com (website | graph) - Since August 2003
Motorola.com (website | graph) - Since August/September 2003
palmOne.com (website | graph) - Since August 2003
Kodak.com (website | graph) - Since late August 2003
MySQL.com* (website | graph) - Since August 2003
Amazon.ca (website | graph} - Since August 2003
Amazon.fr (website | graph) - Since August 2003
Redhat.com* (website | graph) - Since July 2003
CocaCola.com (website | graph) - Since February 2003
Netcraft.com* (website | graph) - Since February/March 2003

Pepsi.com (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)

Oreilly.com* (website | graph) - Since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)

Easyjet.com (website | graph) - Since September 2003

AMD.com (website | graph) - sporadically since April 2003, ahead since June 2003

travelocity.com (website) - Ahead since Oct 2004

usps.com (website) - Since Oct 2004

ups.com (website) - Since Oct 2004

overstock.com (website) - Since Jan 2005

symantec.com (website) - Since Jan 2005

Humour, Music, Other

There are no musical or humorous sites ahead of Wikipedia.

Adultfriendfinder.com (graph) - Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking October 2005.
webshots.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking July 2005
Neopets (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005
monster.com. (website | [no graph]) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
NBA.com (website | graph) - ahead on 3 month ranking May 2005.
no-ip.com (website | [no graph]) - Since March 2005.
shopping7.org from Hong Kong (website | graph) passed in early November, 2004.
Hot or not? (website | graph) - Since May 2004, reliably since July 2004.
Geocities.com (website | graph) - Since May 2004
MTV.com (website | graph) - Since April 2004.
rottentomatoes.com (website | graph) - ahead since February 2004, three month average ahead since March 2004
newgrounds.com (website | graph) - ahead since February 2004
Playboy (graph) - Since February 2004.
rotten.com (graph) - Since January 2004
National Hockey League (website | graph) - Since December 2003 (on-season)
xe.com (website | graph) - starting to be passed in late 2003, in January 2004 xe did better, in February back to Wikipedia ahead.
Fark.com* (website | graph) - Since November 2003 (reliably since December)
allmusic.com (website | graph) - Since October 2003 (reliably since November, but allmusic.com was higher during Wikipedia's low late December)
TheOnion.com* (website | graph) - Since September 2003
art.com (website | graph) - Since September 2003
WhiteHouse.gov (website | graph) - Since late July 2003
Anandtech.com (website | graph) - Since August 2003
TomsHardware.com* (website | graph) - Since late August 2003
sex.com (graph) - Since late August 2003
01net.com (website | graph) - Since July 2003
Penthouse.com ( graph) - Since late June 2003
Space.com (website | graph) - Since May 2003 (but space.com temporarily overtook in late August)
startrek.com (website | graph) - Since late March 2003
Cockeyed.com (website | graph) - Since December 2002
SomethingAwful.com (website | graph) - Since May 2003 (reliably since July)
The Best Page in the Universe (website | graph) - Since December 2002 (reliably since March 2003)