Visits to the Top Million Websites Were 12.2% Below Their 2022 Peak
Worldwide visits to the top one million websites reached 1.970 trillion in the third quarter of 2026, 12.2% below their peak in the first quarter of 2022. The figures, drawn from Similarweb data and shared by SparkToro, offer a broad measure of browser activity—but not a complete account of how people use the internet.
SparkToro co-founder and CEO Rand Fishkin requested Similarweb’s estimates of desktop and mobile web visits, including a breakdown by website rank. The totals were highest at 2.243 trillion in Q1 2022, then fell to a low of 1.914 trillion in Q1 2026, a 14.7% decline from the peak. Visits rose to 1.970 trillion in Q3 2026, leaving the latest quarter 12.2% below the high point.
The traffic decline did not substantially change the rank split
Similarweb grouped the million sites into five ranking bands, from the top 10 through sites ranked 100,001 to one million. The share of visits attributed to each group changed relatively little between the beginning and end of the period.
The top 10 accounted for roughly 33% of visits in Q4 2021, while the next 90 sites represented about 36%. In Q3 2026, the corresponding combined share for the top 100 was also around 36%, according to the figures described in SparkToro’s post. Shares for the groups below the top 100 were slightly lower at the end of the period.
Fishkin characterized the increase in the top 100’s share as small, saying “stagnation is a more accurate description of the trend.” The broadly stable distribution does not mean smaller sites maintained their visit totals. If the overall number of visits declined while each group’s share stayed close to its earlier level, the absolute volume of visits to sites outside the top 100 also declined.
Per-user figures require an important caveat
SparkToro also reported a 29.2% decrease in visits per internet user. That measure divides Similarweb’s total visit estimates by quarterly global internet-user estimates from DataReportal. The figures in the post put the user population at 4.95 billion in Q4 2021 and 6.15 billion in Q3 2026, an increase of about 24% across those endpoints.
However, the user estimates include a significant revision during the period. DataReportal’s October 2025 report said the increase from 5.65 billion to 6.04 billion in Q3 2025 was “largely attributable to significant revisions” to officially reported internet-use rates in India and China. DataReportal cautioned against reading the change as hundreds of millions of people newly coming online in a single quarter.
SparkToro’s post did not discuss that reporting change when presenting the per-user comparison. The 29.2% figure should therefore be treated with more caution than the visit-total decline, which does not depend on the internet-user estimates. Comparing user totals from before and after the revision may make the per-user trend appear different from a calculation based on a consistent series.
What the panel measures—and what it leaves out
Similarweb’s figures cover browser visits on desktop and mobile, not activity inside apps. Fishkin noted that concentration among large technology companies may be more pronounced in apps, but the data presented do not quantify app use. The series is global, and the post did not provide regional breakdowns or the panel’s size.
That geographic scope limits how marketers should use the results. Fishkin said it was plausible that visits to sites in the United States, United Kingdom and European Union declined while regions with growing internet access, including parts of Asia and Africa, saw growth. The figures supplied do not confirm that pattern, so the global total cannot establish what happened in any particular market.
Nor does the report identify why visits fell. Fishkin listed possible contributors—including app-only behavior, search results that satisfy users without a website visit, use of AI tools, social platforms and changes in behavior after the COVID-19 pandemic—but did not attribute the decline to any one factor.
SparkToro updated its post after publication. On Nov. 10, 2026, Fishkin said on X that the earlier version contained “an incorrect graph/data.” The initial headline had described a 24% decline, although the URL still reflects that figure. The revised 12.2% estimate for Q3 2026 is the figure to use when discussing the corrected analysis.
For marketers, the findings provide global context rather than a direct performance benchmark. The measure counts browser visits to the top million sites, regardless of traffic source; it is not a count of search clicks or a forecast for an individual publisher. Fishkin said he plans to compare the results with other sources and revisit the numbers every year or two.
