Google.com, home to the world’s most popular search engine, beat Facebook.com to become the most visited website in the world in November as people spent more time shopping and comparing deals than networking online.

There was also a sharp jump in traffic to online retail sites such as Amazon and to online advertising domains like googleadservices.com.

Overall, people spent considerably less time on non-shopping websites in November compared with October, resulting in marked decline in the number of visits to non-shopping websites, according to web analytics firm similarweb.com.

So, while Google’s traffic fell 3.4% in November compared to October, that of Facebook.com fell 6%. The numbers are collected from various sources and may not correspond exactly to data disclosed by the companies.

Despite the decline in traffic, Google.com regained the top spot as the world’s most visited webpage during the month, and had an 8.5% share of the total visits during the month. Total visits during the month were recorded at 30.56 billion.

Facebook, which was No. 1 in October, was pushed to the second place with 7.1% of total visits, amounting to 25.51 bln visits.

It should be kept in mind that these number reflect the total traffic (visits), and may not correspond to the actual time spent on the website or the total number of users (unique visitors).

For example, people may be spending twice as much time on a Facebook.com page compared to a Google.com page. If a single person visits a webpage twice every day, it would be recorded as 60 visits per month.

Another factor to be kept in mind is that the data for Google.com excludes traffic to all the country-specific websites that the search giant has set up. For example, the search giant had three more search pages — google.co.uk, .com.br and co.in, in the list of the top 10 most visited websites in November.

Facebook also divides its global traffic into different domains, but to a far lesser degree. For example, Google’s Brazil page got 1,480 million visits in November, while facebook.com.br received less than 1 million.

Youtube, the No. 3 website in the world by traffic, saw a drop of 3.77% in November to 21.84 bln visits.

AMAZON JUMPS

November is the month when people in the US make big discounted purchases on the occasion of ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’. Overtime, these ‘deal days’ have spread to other markets around the world as well.

The impact of the sales was clearly visible in the traffic ratings. Amazon.com saw a 12.7% jump in its monthly traffic in November and rose to No. 11 in the list of the most visited websites in the world. It recorded a total of 2.64 bln visits. Ebay traffic rose by 2% to 1.15 bln.

It was also a good month for online advertisers. Googleadservices.com traffic jumped 7% to 2.52 bln visits, while that of doubleclick.net — also owned by Google — was higher by 4.6% at 1.28 bln visits.

People also spent less time on porn, with traffic to xvideos.com — the world’s most popular website devoted to the category — down almost 3% to 1.45 bln and that to pornhub.com down 3.6% to 1.22 bln.