Facebook-driven traffic dips globally, Chartbeat data shows

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 30/06/2021

Traffic driven by Facebook to sites has plunged globally since early May, though not all regions have been affected the same by this trend, Chartbeat data shows.

In response to recent reporting by several of its partners of a notable drop in the traffic they receive from Facebook, Chartbeat analyzed network-wide traffic from sites in more than 70 countries.

“While Facebook traffic can fluctuate from week to week, the data shows a downward trend that began in early May,” the company notes.

Since the beginning of May 2021, total traffic driven by Facebook to sites in Chartbeat’s network has declined steadily week over week, dropping by more than 18% over a six-week period.

However, as a proportion of overall traffic, the pattern looks less severe. In the first week of May, the social platform accounted for about 8% of global traffic, and dropped to 7.3% by mid June.

North America saw the largest declines in Facebook referrals

Chartbeat’s data showed that certain regions were more affected by the global trend than others, with North America seeing the largest declines in Facebook referrals.

Facebook traffic in North America dropped from an average of 57.6 million daily pageviews in the first week of May to an average of  45.4 million daily pageviews in recent weeks. 

European and Middle Eastern sites, on the other hand, saw almost no decline over the same period. In Latin America and Asia Pacific, the decline in traffic was steady, but less pronounced than the pattern seen in North America.