Wikipedia.org is more popular than...
This page should not be taken too seriously; the domain names we list below are not necessarily considered Wikipedia's competition; in fact, we actively collaborate with some. Alexa's rankings only measure certain people who use Windows/IE to browse the web; any website that receives a large part of their traffic from Linux, BSD, Mac OS or even Windows users who don't use IE, will not appear as popular as they really are (though it is easy to argue that includes Wikipedia!). On top of this, the Alexa toolbar and service are only available in English. Finally, the web presence of many of these sites 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
Dramatic 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.
Wikipedia's Alexa ranking milestones
- #500 : First breached on a day-by-day basis in early May 2004. 3 month ranking was 497 on 11 October 2004, daily was 275, weekly 288 on this date.
- #450 : On 19 October 2004, the three month average was 450, still showing a steady growth with a weekly average of 231.
- #400 : The 400 ranking has been passed on November 1st, the weekly average is now 235.
- #350 : On November 15th, 2004, the 3 month average was 337, breaking 350 for the first time. The weekly average was 222.
- #300 : On November 28th, 2004, the 3 month average was 292, breaking 300 for the first time. The weekly average was 182.
- #250 : December 19th, 2004: 3 month average: 222, weekly average: 191.
- #200 : 7th January 2005: 3 month average 199; one week average 143.
- #175 : 29th January 2005: 3 month average 175; one week average 137.
- #150 : 6th March 2005: 3 month average 138; one week average 114 (Note: as of this date the 3 month ranking on Wikipedia's own Alexa page hadn't been updated for over three weeks, but it was shown in this position on Wikipedia's top 500 list).
Wikipedia.org is more popular than...
According to Alexa.com... here's a nice little graph of WP vs. a few other important sites.
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.
Encyclopedia/Search Reference Sites
- excite.com (website | graph ) Wikipedia ahead on 3 month ranking by January 2005
- Internet archive (website | graph) Ahead since October 2004
- dmoz.org (website | graph) Passed at the end of September 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.
- Hotbot (website | graph) - since March 2004
- Mysearch.com (website | graph) - since March 2004; taking a hard tumble.
- Library of Congress (website | graph) - since December 2003
- Looksmart.com (website | graph) - since late January 2004
- Britannica.com (website | graph) - since June 2003
- Whatis.com (website | graph) - since June 2003
- HowStuffWorks.com (website | graph) - since August 2003 (reliably since October 2003) -- NB: listed as #50 on Alexa's "Top 50 Reference Sites" list
- Amazon.ca (website | graph} - since August 2003
- Amazon.fr* (website | graph) - since August 2003
- Bartleby.com (website | graph) - since July 2003
- Infoplease.com (website | graph) - since July 2003
- Encyclopedia.com (website | graph) - since April 2003
- 4Reference.com (website | graph) - since February 2003 or longer
- Onelook.com (website | graph) - since February 2003
- 1911Encyclopedia.com (website | graph) - since before December 2002
- www.arxiv.org (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
- Everything2.com* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
- Nupedia.org (website | graph) - since (long) before December 2002
Journal/Other reference sites
- NIH (website | graph). Wikipedia well ahead by November 2004.
- NASA (website | graph) - NASA jumped ahead in January 2004, but with the cooling of interest in the MER mission, Wikipedia started getting higher marks in early April. NASA is however variable, and might easily get higher again temporarily.
- NOAA (website | graph) - since March 2004
- SciAm.com (website | graph) - since February 2003
- HistoryChannel.com (website | graph) - since March 2003
- Biography.com (website | graph) - since March 2003
- ScienceDaily.com (website | graph) - since mid-January 2003
- 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)
- Urbandictionary.com (website | graph)
University Sites
- Harvard.edu (website | graph) - since November 2003
- MIT.edu (website | graph) - since November 2003
- Cornell.edu (website | graph) - since September 2003
News and Media sites
- usatoday.com (website | graph) First passed in September 2004; consistent 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) - Wikipedia was ahead in February-March 2004, but Al Jazeera jumped ahead again in April. Wikipedia higher again since June 2004, reliably since August 2004; al Jazeera varies depending on the main ongoing news stories of the week.
- 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
- classmates.com (website | graph). -since December 2004
- Open diary (website | graph). Passed consistently in Oct 2004.
- Livejournal.com* (website | graph). First higher days were late March; seems to have been overtaken medio April, consistently since May. LiveJournal has very high traffic from AOL and other places whose traffic isn't recorded by Alexa.
- Friendsreunited.co.uk (website | graph ) - since early 2004
- Slashdot.org* (website | graph) - since 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
- OpenOffice.org* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
- Debian.org* (website | graph) - since December 2002 or longer
Corporate sites
- 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* (Wanadoo portal (French major ISP, virtually state-owned)) (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 (don't tell Jimbo!) (website | graph) - since August 2003
- Motorola.com (website | graph) - since August/September 2003
- palmOne.com (website | graph) - since medio August 2003
- Kodak.com (website | graph) - since late August 2003
- MySQL.com* (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
Sex, Shock
- Playboy (website | graph) - since February 2004.
- rotten.com (website | graph) - since January 2004
- sex.com (website | graph) - since late August 2003
- Penthouse.com (website | graph) - since late June 2003
Humor, Music, Other
- Hot or not? (website | graph) - Since May 2004, reliably since July 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
- 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 medio August 2003
- TomsHardware.com* (website | graph) - since late August 2003
- 01net.com (website | graph) - since July 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)
Uncategorized
- Geocities.com (website | graph) - since May 2004
- shopping7.org from Hong Kong (website | graph) passed in early November, 2004.
- sourceforge.net* (website | graph) Passed consistently in October 2004.
- ....
Please add widely recognized websites to this list.
Wikipedia consistently ahead but 3 month rank not yet higher
This is for sites Wikipedia appears to have reliably passed but where the Alexa 3 month rank hasn't yet reflected the increase in Wikipedia traffic rank or the decrease in the traffic rank of the compared site. If there appears to be uncertainty, the site belongs in the following section.
Barely overtaken
Wikipedia should be beating the sites in this section most days, but perhaps not all. Wikipedia will be close in weekly rating but considerably behind in 3-month ranking.
Wikipedia.org 3 month rank for comparison: [1 Feb 2005: 172]
- miniforum.org (in traditional Chinese) (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 141] Falling. Wikipedia ahead throughout January. Passing this would make Wikipedia 2nd among dot-orgs.
- AltaVista (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 156] Neck and neck for the much of January.
Websites we seem to be on a trend to pass in the foreseeable future
Wikipedia.org 3 month rank for comparison: [1 Feb 2005: 172]
- New York Times (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 90] Ranking is both seasonal and liable to random fluctuations for major news stories. In Summer 2004 it fell below 150, and Wikipedia's ranking should be higher than that by Summer 2005. Wikipedia beat it on a daily basis for the first time in February 2005.
- wanadoo.fr No 1 French ISP and web site (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005:112] Rising, but more slowly than Wikipedia.
- reference.com (including dictionary.com, website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 135] Wikipedia ahead on weekly average on 20 February 2005.
- Walla.co.il (in Hebrew) (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 142]. Rising strongly, but not quite as strongly as Wikipedia.
Reference and search sites still out of reach [3-mos. Avg]
Wikipedia.org 3 month rank for comparison: [1 Feb 2005: 172]
- Google UK (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 27]
- netscape.com (website | graph) [Jan: 46]
- mapquest.com (website | graph) [Jan: 60]
- imdb.com (website | graph) [Jan: 65]
- about.com (website | graph) [Jan: 72]
- Lycos.com (website | graph). [1 Feb 2005: 77] Has revived after a slump in mid 2004.
- craigslist.org from San Francisco, 1st among dot-orgs (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 83] Rising strongly.
- Ask Jeeves, aka ask.com (website | graph) [1 Feb 2005: 86]
Other selected out-of-reach sites [3 month average]
Wikipedia.org 3 month rank for comparison: [1 Feb 2005: 172]
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). It should also be noted that Wikipedia.org is probably more popular than its Alexa ranking indicates since two thirds of all Wikipedia articles are in languages other than English.