The most popular method users discover new content is through other content websites, more than search engines and social networks according to a new study. Also, find out what are the top traffic sources and international traffic trends.

About The Study’s Company

The company that conducted this study is Outbrain, a company that connects users to related web content they like and works with numerous major companies like USA Today, MSNBC and The New York Post. The study was based on its 150 premium clients.

Top External Traffic Sources – Breakdown

The study has found that 56% of the traffic to content pages comes from other content pages (websites) while search responsible for 37% and social networks only for 7%.

What the study don’t describe is the initial source of traffic. It is more than possible that users found content through search engines and from there to other content pages (search->content->content). I am pretty sure that if that was measured, then search traffic had much more weight.

At any case, our best work from home efforts for traffic should still be from search engines, simply because the content websites that responsible for the 56% are almost impossible to market in effectively- They are independent content creators and the only way “to infiltrate” them is maybe through guest posting.

What is also interesting is that social networks responsible only for 7%, however, again, i am pretty positive that if the study was covers the initial source of traffic it might be higher (social->content->content).

Who Is a Bigger Source Of Traffic: Facebook Or Twitter?

The study also examined who is a bigger source of traffic among the biggest social networks (at least until Google+ will become the second one), Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

As you see, Twitter proved to be a better source of traffic at all topics. It can be explained by the nature of the social platform- While Facebook “encourage” the users to stay inside the network (Friends, groups, photos), Twitter is more of a short messaging platform that used for recommendations and suggestion.

Top Traffic Sources – Google Is Still Upfront

Although i wouldn’t take it as an accurate sample (Outbrain is the 6th traffic source online??) because only limited number of sources examined, it can still demonstrate the dominance of Google above all others. Here are its full findings: