American immigration focuses on life in the United States: Those working at major news websites or publishers know that social media referrals, which involve sharing links on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, have become a key source of web traffic; meanwhile, for some time now, sharing and search have been competing for the top source of new readers. Now, new data released by the traffic analysis firm Parse.ly shows that Facebook is no longer just in a tussle with Google; it has left Google far behind.
Andrew Montarenti, Chief Technology Officer of Parse.ly, stated in an interview with Fortune magazine that the company's latest estimates indicate that social media (with Facebook far surpassing its peers) accounts for approximately 43% of the traffic to media websites covered by Parse.ly, while Google's share is 38%.
Parse.ly's clients include over 400 major news and media organizations, including traditional news outlets such as Wired, The Atlantic, Reuters, and The Daily Telegraph, as well as a large number of purely digital media like Mashable, The Next Web, and Business Insider. Overall, they generate approximately 6 billion monthly page views and have over 1 billion unique visitors.
Montarenti noted that this is not the first time Facebook has outperformed Google in terms of referrals. In October of last year, Facebook had a slight edge, but this month's lead is much larger. Additionally, data from Parse.ly clearly shows that search engines seem to have entered a bottleneck period, as they have not actually achieved growth as a source of media referrals. Furthermore, Facebook's influence "indicates that it has been on the rise."
Facebook's growth momentum has been quite strong. Data from Parse.ly indicates that just last January, Facebook accounted for only 20% of the traffic contributions from sources recorded by Parse.ly on media websites; now, its share has more than doubled. However, Montarenti pointed out that this does not mean Facebook contributes 43% of all traffic, but rather that among the traffic sources from which Parse.ly can obtain data, Facebook accounts for 43%.
Tony Hale, CEO of another traffic analysis firm, Chartbeat, stated that his company's data reflects a similar situation. Although the variety of websites that drive traffic through Google search far exceeds that of Facebook, major news and media websites are clearly more dependent on Facebook than on Google. He said, "Among all the websites we cover, one-third perform better with Facebook referrals than with Google; but among the top fifth of websites, about half receive more traffic from Facebook."
There is no doubt that social sharing has become a significantly more important source of traffic than other channels due to its inherent advantages. However, Parse.ly's CTO Montarenti believes that Google's adjustments in referral practices may also be a contributing factor. Previously, Google would inform news media organizations which keywords brought them the most traffic; however, now, in most cases, Google no longer provides such data. Google's rationale is that this is done for security reasons. In Montarenti's view, this move may also be because Google does not want these organizations to manipulate its algorithms.
Regardless of the reasons, the inability to ascertain what traffic Google brings, along with the uncertainty of why it does so, may lead people to become increasingly disinterested in search engine optimization and more focused on using social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Montarenti pointed out that earlier this year, Facebook revealed its Instant Articles project, through which it has been courting media to place more content on its platform.
Montarenti believes that the only issue with these changes is that when people want to know why one article is popular while another receives little attention, Facebook can become almost as inscrutable as Google. In such cases, it becomes difficult for media to formulate a coherent social media strategy.
He said, "Media has put a lot of effort into social channels like Twitter, but our data shows that Twitter is essentially a marginal source of traffic. This is unfortunate. Facebook's transparency regarding how its algorithms work is much lower. Twitter provides much more useful information regarding content than Facebook, while Facebook is more like a black box, making it impossible to know how it operates. However, it is a massive source of traffic and continues to grow."