It isn't news that Google is the world's top website - but it isn't top everywhere. There are parts of the world where other sites have ousted Google from its usual No 1 position.

This map showing the dominant websites around the world comes from Webempires and is based on Alexa traffic rank data. Its an impressive achievement to sift through so much data to produce this interesting patchwork.

Commenting on the resulting pattern on his post about it, Paul Jaconis notes:

Facebook it is on its way of taking over Africa and fighting some really tough battles in Asia.

A comment from Adelaide Steedley on the post suggests that Facebook's dominance in the north part of Africa reflects internet connectivity and access to electricity than any inherent strength of the app. She writes:

Cost is a huge factor - internet access is very expensive in Africa, unlike the US or other richer economies, requiring users to be very intentional in their internet use. Users in poorer economies must be very intentional in their (expensive and slow) use of the internet.  Chances are folks use Facebook like email, to keep up with friends around the world, without having to check [both] Facebook and email. 

Adele also asks why most of Africa falls into the "unknown" category. This is explained by the fact that Alexa only collects data from 125 countries and so there's just no information rather than there being other popular websites.

In the case of the obvious oasis of orange hatching in  otherwise Google-colored Western Europe we encounter the Czech Republic where Seznam.cz was more popular than Google.cz in May when the map was compiled.It even has a pretty impressive global rank  - today it stands at 392 in the world.

Had the map been compiled a couple of years back Yahoo would no doubt have shown up more widely. As it is it is No 1 in Cameroon and a separate company Yahoo.co.jp is #1 in Japan and is #15 in the world. Overall, however, according to Alexa Yahoo has a global rank of 4 which puts it ahead of Baidu which is at 5, and as the map clearly shows #1 in China which must give it a phenomenal growth potential.

Yandex which is #1 in Russia colors the top right area of the map yellow. It is currently ranked 24 in the world and faces rivalarly from mail.ru which is ranked 4 in Russia but comes top in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

More Information
World map of dominating websites

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