In 2021, TikTok had more traffic than Google

TikTok is truly unstoppable: the video-sharing platform has surpassed Google to become the most popular website in the world, according to Cloudflare’s 2021 Year in Review internet traffic rankings.

TikTok made Cloudflare’s top ten list last year, ranking seventh in popularity behind Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon’s.coms. Aside from TikTok’s surge to the top, the order of that list remains largely unchanged for 2021—Amazon jumped up one spot, swapping places with Netflix.

Cloudflare noted in a blog post that comparing the numbers between the two years could produce potentially misleading results because the service only culled data from September to December in 2020. (compared to all 12 months being accounted for in 2021). TikTok first peaked in the global traffic rankings on February 17, 2021, followed by a few more days in March and June, and then a more permanent stay at the top beginning in late August, according to Cloudflare.

While TikTok initially drew a teenaged audience focused on coordinating lip sync and dance videos, the app has since piqued the interest of users of all ages and demographics, who flock to the app for its cooking hacks, memes, and spirituality content, to name a few topics.

While Cloudflare only provides raw data and does not provide any analysis of the trends, it appears telling that TikTok—still a relative newcomer in 2020—shot to the top to decisively beat out Google.com and all of its ancillary services, including Maps, Translate, Photos, Flights, Books, News, and others. It’s also worth noting that TikTok, whose parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, is now the only non-American site in the top 10.

The rise in popularity of TikTok has not gone unnoticed by advertisers: The New York Times reported on the same day that Cloudflare released its list of rankings that retailers now see the platform as a “holy grail of marketing,” as they seek to reach coveted influencers and Gen Z eyeballs amid the continued decline in popularity of cable television. According to the Times, investing in TikTok ad space appears to have been a safe bet, as the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has now been viewed more than 7 billion times on the app.

“The growth that we’ve seen is insane,” said Krishna Subramanian, founder of the influencer marketing firm Captiv8. “Brands have progressed from simply testing TikTok to making it a budget line item or creating dedicated TikTok campaigns.”