Facebook was Most Visited, Searched for Website in 2010

Facebook was the most visited website in the United States in 2010, and the world’s largest social network was also the year’s most popular search term, according to Experian Hitwise. Facebook accounted for 8.93 percent of all US visits between January and November, the metrics firm said in its year-end round up. Google came in second with 7.19 percent of visits with Yahoo Mail, Yahoo and YouTube rounding out the top five.

Finding Facebook

The term “Facebook” accounted for 2.11 percent of searches overall in 2010. A total of four variations of Facebook such as “Facebook.com,” “www.Facebook.com” and “Facebook login” were in Experian Hitwise’s top 10 search terms in 2010 accounting for 3.48 percent of all US searches. Other popular search terms in 2010 were YouTube, Craigslist, MySpace and eBay.

Website vs. Web Property

Facebook may be the number one website, but it still hasn’t beaten out Google as the top Web property. Google and its related sites such as Gmail, YouTube and Blogger accounted for 9.85 percent of all US visits. Facebook and its related properties were slightly behind the Googleverse at 9.83 percent of all visits.

Top Categories

Kim Kardashian topped Experian Hitwise’s list of top celebrity search terms, followed by Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, Miley Cyrus and Glenn Beck. Star Wars was the top movie title search, Lady Gaga beat out Justin Bieber and Eminem for the top music search and Dancing with the Stars was the top TV title search in 2010.

Tiger Woods and the Dallas Cowboys topped Experian Hitwise’s sports searches. Former Poison lead singer Bret Michaels was the top search among personalities in the news followed by Tiger Woods and Sandra Bullock.

Experian Hitwise’s top search terms were based on its analysis of what it said were the 1,000 top search terms of 2010.

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