The list of 25 most-visited Web sites continues to be dominated by search
engines and Web indices.
Whether connecting from work or from home, Media Metrix’s monthly “Top 25 Web Sites” revealed that ten of the top 25 were search engines such as Excite and Infoseek, or Web indices including Yahoo!, GeoCities, and Four11.com.
Another large percentage of the list was taken by online service “start
pages”–the default page for users. They included netscape.com, aol.com,
msn.com, and compuserve.com.
The very popularity and usefulness of search and index sites can be viewed, however, as an indication that many categories of information do not yet have a standout or “best” page. Users turn to search services because they do not know where to go.
As an example, Amazon.com, CNN, MSNBC, and ZDNet are all among the top 25
sites. It is clear that in the categories of books, news, and
computing, users have found such best-of-breed sites. But many categories
do not have such standouts, and the market for a leader in those remains
wide open.