The Web Unpacked: A Quantitative Analysis of Global Web Usage

Henrique Xavier

2024

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of global web usage patterns based on data from 250,000 websites monitored by SimilarWeb. We estimate the total web traffic and investigate its distribution among domains and industry sectors. We detail the characteristics of the top 116 domains, which comprise an estimated one-third of all web traffic. Our analysis scrutinizes their content sources, access requirements, offline presence, and ownership features, among others. Our analysis reveals that a diminutive number of top websites captures the majority of visits. Search engines, news and media, social networks, streaming, and adult content emerge as primary attractors of web traffic, which is also highly concentrated on platforms and USA-owned websites. Much of the traffic goes to for-profit but mostly free-of-charge websites, highlighting the dominance of business models not based on paywalls.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Xavier H. (2024). The Web Unpacked: A Quantitative Analysis of Global Web Usage. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST; ISBN 978-989-758-718-4, SciTePress, pages 183-190. DOI: 10.5220/0012905900003825

in Bibtex Style

@conference{webist24,
author={Henrique Xavier},
title={The Web Unpacked: A Quantitative Analysis of Global Web Usage},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST},
year={2024},
pages={183-190},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012905900003825},
isbn={978-989-758-718-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST
TI - The Web Unpacked: A Quantitative Analysis of Global Web Usage
SN - 978-989-758-718-4
AU - Xavier H.
PY - 2024
SP - 183
EP - 190
DO - 10.5220/0012905900003825
PB - SciTePress