Google is not the most popular domain throughout the world, it has recently been overtaken by TikTok, as per the latest rankings released by Cloudflare, a web security company. Every year Cloudflare ranks the most popular domains globally. Its Year in Review report talks about various domains that have gained the most amount of traffic every year. Google.com, which is a huge conglomerate, includes Mail, News, Translate, Maps, among numerous other services was the leader of Cloudflare’s rankings last year.
Google is one of the largest tech giants worldwide. Getting a rank 1 on Google is still considered to be the primary and only focus for many websites around the world. Last year, TikTok ranked number 7 in position. However, in 2021, TikTok.com has made a major leap in terms of traffic and has been ranked before all world-leading top domains such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Not only is this a major feat, but it goes a long way into explaining how the constant efforts of a social media platform can turn it into one of the most popular websites around the globe.
Here are the 10 Top domains in terms of traffic and therefore popularity, as ranked by Cloudflare for the year 2021: –
TikTok’s journey from number 7 in 2020 to number 1 in 2021 in terms of traffic
TikTok’s journey from number 7 has been quite interesting. It gained the most traffic out of all domains on February 17, 2021. It also had the most hits a few days in March and May. However, after August 10, 2021, TikTok generated the most traffic on most of the days. There were just a few days that TikTok wasn’t leading all global domains in terms of traffic. However, during the holiday season in October, and November, TikTok was again leading the world rankings. It was particularly popular on Black Friday and Thanksgiving this year and managed to get the top day rankings.
What do these rankings mean?
Despite what these rankings may seem like at first impression, they do not mean that TikTok is now the largest social media platform. It is safe to say that TikTok still needs to go a long way before it can reach those heights. However, it does mean that TikTok managed to receive more traffic than any other global domain. This does not imply that TikTok currently has more users than other competing social media platforms or even Google.
Insider Intelligence also reported that even though TikTok managed to surpass Twitter and Snapchat in global users, it is still behind Instagram and Facebook. This means that currently, you can think of TikTok as the third largest social media platform globally and has the potential to rise to be the largest social media platform in the coming years.
What does it mean for your social media strategy?
Your social media strategy aims to drive sales, improve your online visibility, and gain new customers with a content marketing strategy. Most content marketing strategies have been focused on making your website get rank 1 on Google. However, now that TikTok has generated more traffic than other domains, you cannot simply ignore it in your social media marketing strategy as Insider Intelligence estimates that TikTok will witness a booming 15.1% growth in the number of users globally in 2022.
Even though TikTok may not currently be the biggest social media platform out there, chances are it can grow up to it. TikTok has continuously been earning a top position in all lists in different industry rankings in 2021 alone. In September 2021, it was reported to have overtaken YouTube in the average watch time statistics in the United States. This simply stands for the fact that the users of TikTok in the US are spending more time on TikTok than they are on YouTube watching content.
Conclusion
By the end of 2021, websites throughout the world have been focused on formulating their social media marketing strategies to appeal to millions of users each day and to generate more leads. Even though getting a rank 1 on Google can do wonders for your SEO efforts, these new reports tell us that you should not simply focus all your energy there. You need to devise a comprehensive social media strategy that takes all major social media platforms into account.
Many times content managers would ignore incorporating TikTok in their social media strategy since it wasn’t considered one of the giants until now. However, the staggering number of users of TikTok in 2021 and the projected numbers for 2022 clearly suggest that you need to design your social media strategy keeping TikTok in mind to avoid the risk of losing out on potential clients.