Hitwise: 1 in 5 U.S. pageviews belong to Facebook
Everyone knows Facebook is a popular site, but new numbers from Experian Hitwise show just how popular it was in the U.S. during the month of January.
Yesterday Facebook gave the world its biggest inside peek into the company's inner workings, and the number crunching is far from over.
The latest batch comes from Experian Hitwise, which has posted a breakdown of what it says are 10 "key statistics" about the company's presence online in the U.S. according to data it's gathered. That includes the fact that one ouf out every five page views in January were on Facebook.com.
Some of the findings by category:
Prevalence
"Facebook" is the most searched term in the U.S., Hitwise said, with 14 percent of clicks on top searches going to "Facebook-related terms."
Perhaps more impressive is that one in every eleven visits to Internet sites in the U.S. were to Facebook last month, with the site itself accounting for one in every five page views. Internationally, Hitwise says Facebook is within the top two sites in every market except for in China.
User behavior
Hitwise says users spent an average of 20 minutes on Facebook when they visited in January, with 96 percent of those who used the site being marked as return visitors (that was during January 2012--the company did not provide details on how that stacks up compared to other time periods).
User makeup
In the 12 weeks ending January 28, 2012, Hitwise said that 57 percent of Facebook visitors were female, with the other 43 percent male. When broken down by age, it's more difficult to split up, with 18 percent of users coming in the 18-24 category, 23 percent in the 25-34 bracket, 21 percent in the 35-44 range, 19 percent in the 45-54 group, and 20 percent who were aged 55 and higher.
The company also tallied the income of Facebook visitors, finding that the site had the lowest percentage of users in the top income bracket ($150,000 or higher annually), but that the sheer volume of those users beat out sites like YouTube and Twitter (see above).
If you're hungry for more Facebook stats, particularly those provided by the company itself, be sure to read CNET's breakdown of some key numbersdetailed in the company's initial public offering document.