A new market study from research firm SimilarWeb revealed that YouTube is on track to surpass Facebook in traffic to become the second largest website in the United States. Since Google has long retained the position of the nation’s largest site and YouTube has been a Google subsidiary since 2006, YouTube overtaking Facebook will mean spots No. 1 and No. 2 will belong to Google companies.
The potential switch-up is due to YouTube’s increase in traffic and viewership — while Facebook’s traffic is dropping drastically, to the tune of 8.5 billion to 4.7 billion monthly page views over the last two years, CNBC reports.
The study notes that Facebook is pulling in more traffic from apps — though not enough to keep pace with YouTube. Lately, Facebook has been courting some of the folks responsible for attracting increased traffic to sites like YouTube and Twitch: gamers.
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In June, Facebook debuted fb.gg, which offers livestreaming and video hosting features that ostensibly could compete with both YouTube Gaming and Twitch, including launching the Level Up program to allow supporters to purchase virtual goods for their favorite gamers. Select gamers who partner with Facebook can also be paid through its Gaming Creator Pilot Program.
Per CNBC, the study also predicts that Yahoo, which is currently No. 4, will be overtaken by Amazon, which is currently holding strong at No. 5 — and already jockeying for a higher position thanks to massive Prime Day traffic.
