The Torso of the Internet - 1,718 sites are attracting over 1 million visitors

Written by TJ Mahony (contact - e-mail) -- May 29th, 2007 | Share - Save - E-mail

There has been a lot of talk about the “long tail” of the internet. In December we decided to investigate various attributes of the size of the internet and walked away with two primary conclusions:

• The internet is constantly expanding. In 2006 Compete’s panel visited over 5M unique websites, representing an increase of 77% since 2001.
• The expansion of the internet is not compromising the growth of larger sites – in fact, the larger sites are getting bigger, attracting more visitors and interaction than ever before.

But what about the middle? What we refer to as “The Torso” or sites attracting over a million visitors a month. How many sites are breaking this threshold and how fast is The Torso growing?

In Q1 of 2007, there were 1,718 sites attracting over 1M visitors (U.S.). This represents a 458% increase since 2001. This sets the five year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of “The Torso” at 18.6%. By this time next year The Torso will be comprised of ~2,050 sites!

So who broke the million visitor threshold between Q1 ’06 – Q1 ’07?

Noteworthy additions to The Torso:

• Digg.com: broke the million visitor barrier in April ’06. Digg’s growth continues to impress and as of April ’07 is attracting over 15M visitors each month.
• eMusic.com: EMusic is the I-Tunes of the indie-music labels. I have been a member for years. The songs are considerably cheaper than I-Tunes, no DRM and the community is great at finding talented, but undiscovered artists.
• Foreclosure.com: A natural side effect of the recent real estate boom. Lets hope the growing popularity of the site is not indicative of a real estate crash.
• Gather.com: The social network with a brain is beginning catch on among the adult populous.
• “My” sites: There were “17” sites that broke the million visitor threshold whose domain name began with “my”. Example: mybloglog.com, mygirlyspace.com, myspacestop.com, myview.com, myhotquiz.com… (I’ll stop now).

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Comments

1. Super Fly
   May 29th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

   ““My” sites: There were “17” sites that broke the million visitor threshold”

   Hey for the record, mygirlyquizspacestop.com has very active and engaging content.

   Not to mention, the immersive outer space feel, you have to see to believe.

   Honestly, ask yourself. How many websites are there, from outer space, with girly quizzes that are made specifically for you (and everyone else)? I submit, none as good as mygirlyquizspacestop.com

   Welcome to the Torso!
   ~ Super Fly ~

2. Patacki
   May 29th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

   I have always ignored GoDaddy’s “my”.com upsells… Maybe it’s time to reconsider.

   It would be interesting to see an ‘on the cusp’ analysis. Breakdown all the sites that are between 950K-999K. Then let readers vote on the first to break into the Torso.

3. Boar Haven
   May 29th, 2007 at 10:16 pm

   The Torso. Can talk about the tail as much as you want, but your strength, your balance, your guts, your steam-engine locomotive goin’ off the rails like a crazy train — all come from the middle of the body, the “Torso.”

   Give some glory to the guts of the internet traffic. About time we started to focus on the growing number of sites in the meat of the curve. Torso - it’s big, it has substance, it’s churning — let’s start paying attention to this area and not just the wagging long tail.

4. E. Navarro
   May 30th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

   The tail has been getting too much attention. All those sites are interesting as a whole, but they’re down at teh tail for a reason: they aren’t appealing to very many people. Over a millioin UVs is a good indicator and you can still look at some cool sites that have nothing to do with Google, which I’m sick of hearing about.

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