Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of most visited websites


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. No consensus for a particular outcome has emerged from this discussion. North America1000 11:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

List of most visited websites
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Non-notable list of websites, sourced to 1 company's rankings. Does not seem to be a useful list. Natg 19 (talk) 21:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Internet and Websites. Natg 19 (talk) 21:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 22:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. WP:NOR and WP:NOTSTATS. Ajf773 (talk) 23:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you mind elaborating on how either one of those apply here? The article does not appear to contain original research, and even if it did that would warrant the removal of the original research, not the deletion of the article. As for WP:NOTSTATS, this not an unexplained listing of statistics and this article follows the advice of that page, which says statistics should be placed in tables to enhance readability, and articles with statistics should include explanatory text providing context. I don't see how either one of those applies, let alone would warrant deletion of the article. - Aoidh (talk) 00:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. The Alexa list was frequently cited by others. This is not an editor's original research, but a report of what two companies that are very good at measuring website audiences have learned. If you have ever told someone that Wikipedia is the world's seventh most visited website, you were probably quoting Alexa's data. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 23:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * But Alexa is defunct, and this article makes no further mention of it, so how is this relevant? And it's not "a report of..." (one company now, not two...did you even look at this?), it's merely a copy of a list they provide.  You say that they're very good at measuring website audiences, but how do you know that?  There's no independent auditing of their methods, discussion of uncertainty, etc.  This is the kind of thing you need for notability, and even then, it'd be about their list as a topic unto itself, not grounds to just copy its contents into a WP article. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 17:09, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - The article absolutely meets WP:NLIST, as websites such as Digg, local news, specialist news and others regularly discuss "list of most visited website" as a group. The first time this article was nominated for deletion was at Articles for deletion/List of most popular websites and I don't see anything new that would change notability of this as an article's subject. The article currently relies on a single source which is a potential issue, but it is a surmountable one that does not warrant deletion. - Aoidh (talk) 00:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * But the topic of the article isn't "most visited websites", it's "Similarweb's list of top 50 websites", which is very different. And just because a couple brief posts make brief mention of this does not mean it's worthy of an article.  That's not how GNG (or NLIST) works.  There needs to be significant, secondary, in-depth coverage.  In this case, I'd expect such coverage to talk about Similarweb's methodology, possibly with criticism thereof, the usefulness of the rankings, etc etc.  None of that seems to exist.  This is an article about a single product of a single company...nay, not even about it, merely a copy of it...without any of the secondary sourcing it needs to sustain an article.  Stuff like this is routinely deleted.  35.139.154.158 (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The article's subject unambiguously meets WP:NLIST, and your assessment of reliable sources covering this topic is not borne out by the sources themselves. This article for example does into quite a bit of detail about why the top sites are what they are and how AI might be affecting that. It is unquestioningly a secondary source, as per WP:SECONDARY A secondary source provides thought and reflection based on primary sources, which this source absolutely does. Also, you don't need to respond to every single keep rationale presented; we get fully that you disagree, and that's fine. You've made your point, and for one I do not agree with any of the rationales presented in any way; the rationales you're giving are a surmountable problems that do not warrant deletion of the article. Neither WP:GNG nor WP:NLIST require the types of sources you're expecting with methodology and such; this is not a WP:GAN that requires broad coverage of each aspect of the subject, it is WP:AFD, and no part of the notability guidelines require those types of sources just to show notability of the subject. - Aoidh (talk) 17:26, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "The article's subject unambiguously meets WP:NLIST ...". No, it does not.  As I stated in multiple places, the article's subject is not "most visited websites"; it is "copy of Similarweb's list of top 50 websites".  If you want it to be the former, there is no sourcing, because we have no way to measure that other than this one company's opaque tallying.  If the latter, then there's no way it can possibly pass any sort of notability guideline.  You say the rationales I've given are surmountable.  But a complete lack of sources and notability is not surmountable.  There is no reporting on Similarweb's data collection whatsoever.  This is not surmountable.  35.139.154.158 (talk) 17:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding "But a complete lack of sources and notability is not surmountable" that is true, but also inapplicable to this article since it has both. Your response is very simply not borne out by the sources. The "coverage of methodology" standard you're trying to apply is not found in any applicable notability guideline. - Aoidh (talk) 21:21, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Burn it to ashes, and then burn the ashes. This is not a list of most visited websites, but a reprinting of one single company's such list.  As far as I can find, they offer no information on their methodology, other than a snazzy diagram full of buzzwords.  This is an automatic fail of WP:V, a core content policy.  Nor is it clear what counts as a "website".  Do pages at code.google.com count under google.com?  They don't say.  The top 50 merely contains main domain names (under either TLDs, or sub-TLDs, like co.jp, whatever those are called exactly), so it's unclear if it's actually counting sites, or merely conglomerations of pages under the same domain.  Not only that, but this is primarily just a commercial venture...this fairly minimal free public data is just there as a free sample to sell richer analytics.  Not only not only that, but this list is constantly in flux, since the only source updates its list (which this one is merely a copy of) every month.  This has zero encyclopedic value, and fails the smell test by a mile.  35.139.154.158 (talk) 03:26, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep Circumstances seem to be the same since the last nomination. — Sean Brunnock (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * See WP:LASTTIME. And this falls apart anyway, because, no, circumstances are quite different.  Last time, there were TWO whole companies that reported top-visted websites that this article copied; now there's just one.  One source does not an article make. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 16:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * May I refer you to List of Billboard 200 number-one albums? Sean Brunnock (talk) 17:21, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Only if I may refer you to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Also note that the Billboard list article is an article about the Billboard list specifically, not about a broad "list of top albums".  35.139.154.158 (talk) 17:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep News media covers this topic.  D r e a m Focus  13:07, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No, they don't, and there is no topic beyond "Similarweb's top 50 websites". What few secondary sources were given were of passing mention at most. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 16:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The Google news search and Wikipedia reliable source search at the top of the AFD show ample results for "most visited websites". And in these articles, they do state if they are one of the most visited websites in the world, any article about them would mention how popular they are.   D r e a m Focus  01:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep. The article could use better sources, but the subject is no doubt notable. GuardianH (talk) 01:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete blow it up and start over. Dronebogus (talk) 21:51, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep - easily meets WP:NLIST. IIRC for years it was simply a record of Alexa's rankings. Now it's a different company's (one which is also the standard to cite since Alexa stopped). Anyone can go in and add historical data from Alexa or try to find another service that does these rankings, but I see no problem here. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 01:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, signed,Rosguill talk 15:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - While it is true that this article relies entirely on a single source, multiple other sources that independently searched for this same data using different methods exist, including, , and , the latter of which is a secondary source that appears to be reliable (though it is not in WP:RSP, it has been cited countless times in other articles) and is independent of the subject (they are not one of the top 50 websites by their own metric, making vested interest unlikely), and also further discusses the trends and their potential causes. These sources fulfill all of the points in the general notability guidelines and imply that this topic is one which is notable. RedPanda25 19:00, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete If our article os copying another publications list the tell me how this isn’t a copyvio as we are literally republishing their content and IP. All the other arguments against lists sourced to single sources and failure to be notable. Its essentially a walkimg embodiment of NOT. Spartaz Humbug! 05:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that copyrightability of a list has to do with how much creative work went into it. So we can't reproduce lists that involve value judgments like "Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of 2022" but we can reproduce a list of baseball players with the most home runs (even if it would take considerable effort to replicate a count by rewatching every baseball game ever, it's an easily replicable figure). We don't always enforce this evenly (in looking for links to Copyright in lists, I see Articles for deletion/100 Women (BBC) (2nd nomination) [and subsequent discussions] and Articles for deletion/List of three Michelin starred restaurants in the United Kingdom, for example), but that's the gist. It gets harder when the calculations behind a list of numbers is complicated or unclear. These two might be analogous: Articles for deletion/Sunday Times Rich List 1989 and Articles for deletion/50 Richest Indians in the GCC. Calculating "richest" may involve a similar amount of creative work as determining traffic numbers here, and true to form we have opposing outcomes. :) &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 17:13, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete: Does not meet WP:LIST. Needs to be more independent sources and at this time those don't exist. Let'srun (talk) 15:59, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete I don't think the SimilarWeb rankings have caught on like Alexa ones did; there are a bunch of different services trying to be the next Alexa, and I don't see that any of them have risen to where Alexa was., , . Last two are not RS, but used to prove my point. CloudFare is trying, Similarweb is trying as are others. I can't see us using one site over another, could be construed as PROMO. To keep the article, we'd need some sort of synthesis of the new ranking alternatives and that's likely not ideal either. As it is, we're using one of a few sites to rank websites, that doesn't seem to have the notability yet. Until a clear winner/leader comes up, there is no point using any information from any of them. Oaktree b (talk) 18:51, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Or I suppose we could discuss it at the Reliable Sources noticeboard to try and form a guideline/consensus, but that's outside the scope of this AfD. Oaktree b (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: still seems to be a split between delete and keep, both with valid arguments. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Taking Out The Trash (talk) 00:22, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per RedPanda25, but Let'srun is right about needing more sources. マリオマリオ (talk) 22:04, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep Encyclopedic list. Accesscrawl (talk) 02:18, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep as this article is an encyclopedic list and the subject carries a considerable amount of notability. — the Main Logan  (t•c) 09:33, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - Notable and important.KatoKungLee (talk) 15:20, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete for 2 reasons: 1) if this article does nothing more than copy data from SimilarWeb then it's just redundant and 2) although facts cannot be copyrighted in the US, that this article is a faithful copy of the table on the SimilarWeb site, and that data is gathered by Similarweb, it can only be seen as stealing from a proprietary site. Lamona (talk) 02:51, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete Per WP:NOTMIRROR given that this article is essentially mirroring a separate site's ranking. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 14:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep Per Aoidh and KatoKungLee. I see no harm in keeping this list. I have found it useful myself, so I'm sure others do as well.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 16:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per IP user and Oaktree b. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 22:13, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. As noted above, despite the title, the actual topic of the article is not "which websites are the most visited" - which would need discussion of various methodologies, etc. - but a copy of one particular list by one company. And the article does not provide references to reliable sources establishing the notability of that one list.  Sandstein   06:02, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete, I could maybe see it getting expanded to be more independent, but as of right now it is a single sourced article copied from a relatively unknown website. ✶Mitch  199811  ✶  22:52, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete, obviously. We are an encyclopaedia, here to summarise multiple reliable sources. We are not a mirror site, here to mirror a single database. Further, do we actually have SimilarWeb's consent to do this? Their user agreement for those creating an account forbids "(iv) present or share the data or information received through the Platform without Similarweb’s prior consent". If we don't have consent, this should be speedied. Elemimele (talk) 09:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * post-script: just checked, it's definitely copyvio if we don't have permission, because of the extensive creative work that SimilarWeb put into creating the data. But I'd guess they're quite happy we're copying their data because they know better than anyone that we're a high-traffic website, bringing enormous publicity to their organisation. So here we are, indulging in copyvio because it's commercially useful to the violated. Not a great situation. Put it this way, if the article had been created by someone from SimilarWeb, I doubt anyone would be !voting keep. Elemimele (talk) 09:22, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * List of most watched television broadcasts in the United States is dependent on Nielsen Media Research. This is not unprecedented. — Sean Brunnock (talk) 10:07, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This page is quite different than that one, given that this page is literally mirroring a different site with constant updates to the entire list. The television list is largely static with data only being added sporadically. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:51, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Their user agreement for those creating an account forbids - That doesn't necessarily mean it's a copyvio. It does mean whoever copies it in breached the ToS but that's usually not our concern. extensive creative work that SimilarWeb put into creating the data What is the extensive creative work, though? They receive numbers from some places, scrape other places. "200 data scientists" doesn't mean they're involved in producing the top lists -- most of their efforts are going into their paid products. I'm not saying it definitely doesn't qualify for copyright, but it's not obvious that it does (based on what I've seen be kept/deleted in the past). &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 20:33, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep Per Aoidh and KatoKungLee.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Give Up (talk • contribs) 10:48, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:TNT and WP:NOTMIRROR. A rationale like notable and important is not a valid argument at all.  Greenish Pickle!   (🔔) 00:07, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep, even if we have to blow it up and start it all over. It's a good article to have even if the execution is a bit flawed and more reliable sources are needed. I would recommend incorporating old Alexa statistics if possible in some sort of way, like the 10 historically most visited websites by year similar to how our list on the busiest airports uses stats by year. Maybe even split out the Alexa rankings into their own list?  Invading Invader  (userpage, talk) 22:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep – In my view the article, which regularly gains over 2,000 views per day, meets WP:NLIST. The article could be improved with more sources, but my preference would be for editorial improvement rather than deletion. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 22:32, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * What sources are there to improve this article? Let&#39;srun (talk) 13:30, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps some secondary news sources which report on Similarweb data could at least provide additional verification and some indication of the notability of the content in relation to the website data. An example would be this report in The Guardian. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 23:57, 2 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep - It's safe to assume that people truly in the business of web analytics no longer have as much interest in these lists as they did 10 or 15 years ago, but the topic of these lists is still of interest to the news media and people in general. However, revise the article to include a bit more context about the significance (to website owners, advertisers, news media, etc.) of the topic of "most visited websites" and the brief history of entities that have compiled and maintained lists of such (e.g., that the Alexa Internet list existed from 1996(?) to 2022 and Similarweb currently publishes a comprehensive global list). As part of this context, the article should link to articles about related topics, such as web analytics. (I might try to do this, but I know too little about the topic as it exists today.) Orlady (talk) 19:19, 4 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.