A good measure of online search engine popularity is measuring traffic of online users going to internet destinations, such as Yahoo!, MSN, or Google. A few websites display traffic rankings for nearly every website on the internet, such as Alexa.
I like Alexa Traffic Rankings for my research because they provide charts of traffic over a period of time, similar to stock charts. They also display other data, such as the average number of pages a person will view.
How Alexa measures traffic
Alexa has a browser plugin available for download that uploads your usage history to their servers. They then extrapolate the data and generate traffic graphs and stats.
Top 3 internet destinations
1. Yahoo!
2. MSN
3. Google
Google, as popular as it is, is still ranked third.
Here’s the traffic graphs for Yahoo, MSN, and Google:
Yahoo!
MSN
Google
As you can see, MSN and Yahoo! are flat or declining. Google, on the other hand, has been increasing. It looks like Google may take the #2 spot or even overtake Yahoo! to claim the most visited website on the internet.