No More Compromise

I recently spent some time trawling through the top several hundred websites by traffic numbers as recorded by Alexa to see if I could spot any patterns - and equally any opportunities. Now, we internet marketers know to take these figures with a pinch of salt, but all the same there is an interesting pattern that emerges…

Quite simply the *huge* number of websites in the top few hundred or so that are… file sharing sites. Pictures, videos, music and so on. Whilst I didn’t specifically count them all, I estimate 10%+ of the top-visited 500 sites on the net are file sharing sites.

Want a few examples?

RapidShare - #12
Photobucket - #26
ImageShack - #34
Flickr - #39
DailyMotion - #48
Fotolog - #57
ImageVenue - #59
Veoh - #75
DeviantArt - #77
MegaUpload - #82
MediaFire - #92
DepositFiles - #105
4Shared - #118
Badongo - #133
Easy Share - #137
MegaUpload - #139
MetaCafe - #146
Multiply - #152
FileFactory - #165

And on, and on, and on (all traffic stats accurate at the time of writing)…

Infact, if you take out the “seedier” side of things - the few adult and torrent sites that appear at the top, then omit any non-English language site (of which there are plenty, incidentally) you’re really only left with search engines, social networking sites and… yep, you guessed it, file sharing sites like those listed above.

So tell me, if you’re serious about building traffic to your websites, where should you be looking next for a boost…?