Yep. The internet is one big popularity contest.

But you knew that. Using Alexa, and because I have too much free time, I compared a broad sampling of the typical sites most people likely visit each day on average and merged them on one chart. This would be for the various ‘ings’ they may be into: searching, shopping, news reporting, sharing, etc. (The Alexa list of top sites is here.)

Now, some people don’t give them much weight when it comes to measuring web traffic accurately, others only count page views, etc., but for a quick look at general trends, it’ll more than serve the purpose here. (Click image to enlarge.)

The numbers in the left column represent the percentage of all web traffic viewing given sites: so if 30% of the internet audience is viewing your site or blog, well, um, that’s pretty good.)

Based on a span of five years, you can see how Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are growing at a faster rate—and in relatively shorter time. Also worth noting is how even though Msn, Yahoo and Google have grown more evenly over time, they appear to be trending slightly down lately. Where I was interested though was how us ad and marketing blogs rate.

All are well below Drudge on the chart radar. So much so you need to create another one just to compare. Hey, look at that, I did! (Using methodology as only I can, I also added perezhilton.com into the mix as a pseudo-control group, just to have something from a different category like pop culture.)

Still wasn’t even close, and that’s also comparing top marketing and ad blogs like an AdRants or a Seth Godin. That’s not a slight against them, it just means celebrity rumors and T&A sell more. But you knew that. And just to Make The Ego Smaller, when I look at my stats, I pale in comparison to the aforementioned.

Tags: Alexa