It has been announced that the short-form video sharing platform TikTok was the most visited website on the internet in 2021, marking the first time it hasn’t been Google or Facebook.
A monumental year
In an analysis of online activity this year carried out by storage software company Cloudflare, TikTok emerged as the clear frontrunner as the most visited website on the internet and the most widely used social media platform. It based its rankings on how much traffic a website generated throughout the entirety of 2021.
TikTok was originally launched by Chinese startup company ByteDance in 2016. It hit the headlines a year later when it purchased rival app Musical.ly but it was 2020 when it achieved global domination as millions of users around the globe took to the platform during subsequent lockdowns triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. It wasn’t until 2021, however, when it reached the top spot in Cloudflare’s rankings having finished at seventh place at the end of 2020.
In a blog post, Cloudflare’s João Tomé and Sofia Cardita wrote: “It was on February 17, 2021, that TikTok got the top spot for a day. Back in March, TikTok got a few more days and also in May, but it was after August 10, 2021, that TikTok took the lead on most days,” they said.
A worthy contender
It was noted that whilst Google overtook TikTok a number of times throughout the year, namely in October and November, TikTok dominated the internet on key dates such as Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
In second and third place were Google and Facebook respectively which were then followed by Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, and WhatsApp to complete the top ten.
