Wikipedia.org is more popular than...

This page should not be taken too seriously since the domain names we list below are not necessarily considered Wikipedia's competition; in fact, some we actively collaborate with. Alexa's rankings are also skewed entirely toward people who use Internet Explorer on MS Windows to browse the web, so any website that receives a disproportionately large part of their traffic from Linux, BSD, Mac OS or even non-Internet Explorer Windows users, will not appear as popular as they really are. On top of this, the Alexa toolbar and service are only available in English. In addition, the web presence of many of these websites is not nearly as important to them as other publication/distribution channels (CD ROMs, print, or storefronts, for example). It's just for fun, folks!

Background info: "What is Alexa Ranking?", Using Your Alexa Toolbar Wisely: Assessing Traffic Ranking

NOTE: Wikipedia.org's very dramatic ranking drop in early January 2003 resulted from a mistake in Wikipedia.org's robots.txt file that essentially told Google to ignore all Wikipedia.org pages. Also, Wikipedia.org's fast rebound in later January is the result of Wikipedia.org's pages starting to get indexed by Google again and by a large jump in traffic that occurred from a Slashdotting and other news media coverage resulting from the English Wikipedia's '100,000 article' press release. Another large jump in Wikipedia.org's ranking occurred in early-August when Wikipedia was featured on CNN's TechWatch television program (Wikipedia was also featured on CNN's homepage for a day and their Tech homepage for another day).

According to Alexa.com...

Wikipedia.org is more popular than (input the domain name into the "Compare Sites" field here. The current, large rating graph of Wikipedia for the past 30 days can be found here.

In order to be listed in this first section, wikipedia.org must have a higher three month average rating and be consistently ahead on a weekly basis for at least two solid weeks.

• Britannica.com (website | graph) - since June 2003
• Encyclopedia.com (website | graph) - since April 2003
• Bartleby.com (website | graph) - since July 2003
• Cornell.edu (website | graph) - since September 2003
• Harvard.edu (website | graph) - since November 2003
• Infoplease.com (website | graph) - since July 2003
• 4Reference.com (website | graph) - since February 2003 or longer
• 1911Encyclopedia.com (website | graph) - since before December 2002
• SciAm.com (website | graph) - since February 2003
• ScienceDaily.com (website | graph) - since mid-January 2003
• Open-site.org (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Onelook.com (website | graph) - since February 2003
• HistoryChannel.com (website | graph) - since March 2003
• Biography.com (website | graph) - since March 2003
• Mathworld.Wolfram.com (website | graph) and Scienceworld.Wolfram.com (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)
• Mit.edu (website | graph) - since November 2003
• NPR.org (website | graph) - since July 2003 (reliably since August)
• www.arxiv.org (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Everything2.com* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Kuro5hin.org* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Beliefnet.com (website | graph) - since March 2003 (but equal in June 2003)
• Linux.org* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)
• Linux.com* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Pepsi.com (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)
• CocaCola.com (website | graph) - since February 2003
• GNU.org* (website | graph) - since March 2003
• Oreilly.com* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer (but not in January 2003)
• Netcraft.com* (website | graph) - since February/March 2003
• Heise.de* (large German news site) (website | graph) - since June 2003
• OpenOffice.org* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Freshmeat.net* (website | graph) - since March 2003 (reliably since May)
• MySQL.com* (website | graph) - since August 2003
• Debian.org* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Redhat.com* (website | graph) - since July 2003
• Nupedia.org (website | graph) - since (long) before December 2002
• Bomis.com (don't tell Jimbo!) (website | graph) - since August 2003
• SomethingAwful.com (website | graph) - since May 2003 (reliably since July)
• StraightDope.com (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
• Anandtech.com (website | graph) - since medio August 2003
• TomsHardware.com* (website | graph) - since late August 2003
• Space.com (website | graph) - since May 2003 (but space.com temporarily overtook in late August)
• WhiteHouse.gov (website | graph) - since late July 2003
• Palm.com (website | graph) - since medio August 2003
• Kodak.com (website | graph) - since late August 2003
• Penthouse.com (website | graph) - since late June 2003
• startrek.com (website | graph) - since late March 2003
• urbandictionary.com (website | graph)
• 01net.com (website | graph) - since July 2003
• art.com (website | graph) - since September 2003
• TheRegister.co.uk (website | graph) - since August 2003
• HowStuffWorks.com (website | graph) - since August 2003 (reliaby since October 2003)
• www.AP.org (website | graph) - since early September 2003 (reliably since early November 2003)
• Motorola.com (website | graph) - since August/September 2003
• TheOnion.com* (website | graph) - since September 2003
• sex.com (website | graph) - since late August 2003
• 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)
• Library of Congress (website | graph) - since December 2003
• Amazon.ca (website | graph} - since August 2003
• amazon.fr* (website | graph) - since August 2003
• National Hockey League (website | graph) - since December 2003 (on-season)
• Time.com (website | graph) - since October 2003 (reliably since January)
• Slashdot.org* (website | graph) - since February 2004
• Electronic Arts (website | graph) - similar since September 2003, Wikipedia more clearly ahead since February 2004
• Salon.com* (website | graph) - neck-and-neck since September, well ahead since December 2003, except for one day when the Wikipedia site completely crashed.
• priceline.com (website | graph) - seems to have been overtaken in December 2003, 3 month Alexa ranking for Wikipedia now higher. Looks to be permanent March 2004.
• Looksmart.com (website | graph) - seems to have been overtaken in early January 2004, waiting for Alexa ranking to catch up. Consistently ahead February 2004
• rottentomatoes.com (website | graph) - ahead starting in February 2004, waiting for Alexa rankings to catch up. Consistently ahead daily. Three month average now ahead too, March 2004
• xe.com (website | graph) - starting to be passed in late 2003, in January 2004 xe did better, in February back to Wikipedia ahead.
• ....

Please add more widely-recognized websites to this list.

Barely overtaken

These listings are still unstable and the sites listed may overtake wikipedia.org periodically. (Note: As of March 2004, Wikipedia is growing rapidly and consistently beating these sites on the daily rank. However we err on the side of caution and wait 'til the three-month rank shows Wikipedia ahead... which obvious lags behind and Wikipedia is still behind these sites on that measure)

• Playboy (website | graph) - looks to have been passed in the middle of February 2004, waiting for Alexa ranking to catch up.
• Amazon.de* (website | graph) - ahead starting in February 2004, waiting for Alexa to catch up.
• Hotbot.com (website | graph) - looks as though it will be passed in early March 2004. Passing daily, hotbot is sliding, a three-month overtake should be expected in 4-6 weeks.
• Mysearch.com (website | graph) - seems to have been overtaken in March 2004, still waiting to see whether it's lasting.

Websites we seem to be on a trend to pass in the foreseeable future

• NFL.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia is now higher, but only because we're off-season now. If we were on-season, NFL would still be higher.
• Livejournal.com* (website | graph) some months away yet
• Nasa.gov (website | graph) - NASA jumped ahead in January - Wikipedia will have to wait until the interest in the MER mission declines.
• m-w.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia might soon overtake, but only on m-w's bad days yet.
• Sun.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia often surpasses sun in the weekends, but sun is much higher midweek. Becoming quite a duel, Sun could be the next to go.
• Geocities.com (website | graph) - Wikipedia pipping Geocities on a daily basis fairly often mid-March 2004 - might be the beginning of an overtaking, might just be a temporary thing.
• MTV (website | graph) - getting pretty close, but MTV is still ahead
• NOAA (website | graph) - First passed on a quiet day for NOAA in February 2004 but still lower normally. In the middle of March Wikipedia beat them a few days in a row; might thus be close to overtaking or already there.
• Alexia rank #500

Related pages

• Making fun of Britannica

* Websites that 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). It should also be noted that Wikipedia.org is probably more popular than its Alexa ranking indicates since half of all Wikipedia articles are in languages other than English.