Is Facebook one of the Largest Referrers to Porn?

Facebook is near the top of all of those lists. To me, that looks like people are browsing Facebook and then browsing to these other sites: it doesn't imply that all of the traffic is based on direct link referrals.

The data is also skewed by the fact that it comes from Alexa (and thus the Alexa Toolbar).

kwamenum86• 16 years ago

So they are not relying on the http header or document.referrer? Seems a little silly...

nbpoole4• 16 years ago

Well, it appears that they're trying to track something more general than that. Whether that more general data is valuable or not is a different question. :-P

Groxx2• 16 years ago

Slightly longer answer: collected only from Alexa Toolbar users, and...

>Which sites did users visit immediately preceding youporn.com?

Not "where did users come from". Not "referrers". Not "how did they get here". Just "what were they doing right before they came".

Facebook is at the top because Facebook accounts for an enormous amount of internet traffic. No other reason. And it doesn't even remotely imply people are finding youporn through links on Facebook.

Supporting evidence: downstream stats put FB at 10.47% and Google at 7.53%. "Downstream" being defined as:

>Where do visitors go after leaving youporn.com?

I highly doubt they're following links on youporn to get to Facebook. Or Google search results. They're just browsing both sites at nearly the same time.

edit: left a slightly-modified comment on the blog.

nbpoole4• 16 years ago

...which is still somewhat disturbing :P

grantbachman• 16 years ago

I'm guessing it's just a matter of probability. Many people only use the web for email, porn and Facebook, and on top of that, Facebook is one of the most frequented sites on the net. If people are visiting porn sites, the odds are they were either at Google or Facebook immediately prior.

unfletch• 16 years ago

I'd guess the answer to the article's headline is "yes," if not only because of Facebook's size. Being so big, it makes sense that it's one of the largest referrers to anything.

I mean, India has almost as many English speakers as the US. These things happen when the population is a significant portion of the universe.

tzury• 16 years ago

tldr;

My eye captured the 3rd row which shows google.fr is the 3rd (nearly 7%, while others are jut a bit more than 8%).

Wonder what are French habits in the subject which makes google.fr claiming that high.

Is Facebook one of the Largest Referrers to Porn?

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