Web Design & Development

20 of the best & most popular websites in the world 2023

What’s the best website in the world? It’s a question many of us have wondered, with countless different answers depending on who you ask. But if we’re using popularity to determine the best website, the answer is clear.

Below, we’ve listed some of the best websites in the world, from search engines and social media to streaming sites and online marketplaces.

Alongside these popular websites, we’ve also highlighted what they’re about, why they’re so popular, as well as some tips you can learn from them for your own web design project too.

We’ve also highlighted what these websites are about and why they’re so popular, as well as some tips you can use for your own web design project. Building a popular website is about so much more than good website design. These 20 examples should give you plenty of insight into how to build your own future contender in the popularity stakes!

Read on to discover the most popular websites around in our definitive list of the top 20 websites of 2023.

Introducing the 20 most popular websites

  1. Google

    There’s no doubt that Google is the most popular search engine, but this year it remains at the top spot as the most popular website on the internet. Over 40k searches are reported each second on Google — which translates to over 1.2 trillion searches per year! No matter what someone wants to know, Google is the go-to. Not only that, but Google also now serves as the hub for a plethora of other web services including Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Drive and many more.

  2. YouTube

    This website jumped up the list two spots this year as it’s impressive stats continue to climb. Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day. YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day. Every minute, over 300 minutes of video is uploaded to YouTube. We expect to see YouTube in the top three for a long time to come.

  3. Amazon

    Down one spot from last year, Amazon is still one of the top three most popular website on the internet and dominates the online shopping world. From Amazon.com, site visitors can purchase their favorite books, clothing, home goods, groceries and more! And, if they sign up for the Prime membership, those purchases can be delivered to their front door within just a day or two — for free! With such a wide variety of goods and such amazing service, it’s no wonder Amazon is one of the leaders again this year.

  4. Facebook

    Facebook is the leading social media platform across the world. Its innovative design has changed the way people communicate and live their lives. Every month, the website boasts an impressive 2.37 billion users. 1.66 billion people on average log onto Facebook daily and are considered daily active users (Facebook DAU) as of January 2020, which represents a 9% increase year over year.

  5. Yahoo

    Still going strong is Yahoo.com. Yahoo was the leading search engine and news source for a very long time and still can hold it’s own as one of the most popular websites online. The model has changed a bit however as it really has found more traction for news, articles, finance, etc. vs purely a search engine.

  6. reddit

    reddit.com claims that it is the “Front Page of the Internet.” Created as a site for social sharing and social interaction, reddit.com has become extremely popular among internet users of all age groups and is our single biggest mover since last year, up 11 spots! On reddit users can upload their favorite articles, memes and graphics for the viewing pleasure of other users. Each post is then voted on and ranked by its popularity – with hopes of reaching the front page and gaining views.

  7. Wikipedia

    Wikipedia.org is an online encyclopedia that houses articles on nearly every historical event, location and topic you can think of. Many people turn to Wikipedia for answers to basic questions and beginner research. Wikipedia is building at a rate of over 1.8 edits per second, performed by editors from all over the world. Every day, the site gets over 13.89 million visits, making it one of the most popular websites on the Internet.

  8. eBay

    In 1995, Pierre Omidyar, an online hobbyist, launched AuctionWeb as a section on his personal website. The site’s first successful transaction was a broken laser pointer that sold for $14.83. By 1997, AuctionWeb had changed its name to eBay, and today, the e-commerce corporation has offices in 30 countries. eBay boasts 138 million accounts, and nearly 35 percent of U.S. mobile users have downloaded the company’s app onto their phones. eBay is headquartered in San Jose, California, and claimed over $10 billion in revenue for its last reporting round.

  9. Bing

    Microsoft’s Bing may not be the most used search engine in the world, but it’s climbing the charts. First debuted by Steve Ballmer at the 2009 All Things Digital conference, as of today, Bing is the third most used search engine in the world, behind only Google and China’s Baidu. About 33 percent of Americans fire up Bing for their online searches. Additionally, Yahoo! uses the Bing engine for several platforms and products. The United Kingdom and Taiwan are the company’s second and third largest markets behind the United States.

  10. Netflix

    Eager to emulate Amazon.com’s model, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph conceived of Netflix in 1997. What started as a mail-order DVD service is now one of the top subscription streaming services on the planet. These days, the platform boasts 148 million users worldwide, with only China, Syria, North Korea, and Crimea denied access. International growth, however, has outpaced domestic gains. Since 2015, the number of new sign-ups outside of the United States has increased fourfold. Stateside account creation, however, has grown at a rate of less than 50 percent. Regardless, Netflix is an online powerhouse that doesn’t show signs of slowing down anytime soon.

  11. Office

    A lightweight, cloud-based suite of Microsoft’s Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, Office.com launched in 2008 and has undergone several iterations and name changes. Today, it’s the 11th most popular website on our list. Its popularity is linked to its prevalence in offices across the world in addition to the software’s popularity among freelancers. Office.com also accommodates Outlook, People, Calendar, and OneDrive.

  12. Instructure

    Instructure may not be a household name, but this educational technology company ranks as the 12th most accessed online platform for 2020. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and founded by two BYU graduate students, Instructure is the publisher and developer of a web-based learning management program called Canvas. It also maintains the Canvas Network, a massive open online course platform.

  13. Shopify

    Shopify allows businesses and entrepreneurs to build digital storefronts using a WYSIWYG interface — no coding knowledge required. The Canadian company offers several helpful features, including marketing reporting functionality, payment processing, shipping services, and various customer engagement tools. What started as a small startup in 2004 is now a multinational corporation that made over $1.5 billion in 2019. Over one million sellers and businesses rely on the platform to run their operations, and the site has processed over $100 billion in sales throughout its lifetime, landing Shopify in the 13th spot on our “most popular websites” list.

  14. Twitch

    The 14th most popular website is Twitch. A subsidiary of Amazon.com, Twitch clicked onto the scene in 2011. A live streaming site that is popular among video game enthusiasts, Twitch now broadcasts esports events and tournaments in addition to the personal streams of account holders. In recent years, the platform has attracted all types of content producers from independent news shows to movie review channels. By 2018, 2.2 million broadcasters had set up accounts on Twitch, and 15 million users access the platform daily. To date, the website partners with over 27,000 third-party channels. The overwhelming majority — 81.5 percent — of Twitch users are male, and 55 percent fall into the coveted advertising demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds.

  15. CNN

    Mogul Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network — aka CNN — in 1980. At the time, it was the first U.S. channel to offer 24-hour news coverage. As of 2018, 90.1 million American homes subscribe to the channel through their cable packages. CNN launched online in 1995, and it now ranks as one of the most popular news websites in the world. The platform is a mix of professional reporting, blogs, and live streaming. As of 2016, CNN maintains four versions of its website: an American version, an Arabic version, a Spanish version, and an international version. According to CNN’s press room statistics, its digital platform “is the #1 online news destination across all platforms, with more unique visitors and video starts than any other competitor.”

  16. Linkedin

    One of the most active professional networking sites on the web, LinkedIn, a subsidiary of Microsoft, earns the 16th spot on FreshySites’ 20 most popular sites list. People use LinkedIn to post resumes and articles. Businesses use it to post jobs and as an HR recruiting tool. As of 2019, LinkedIn has about 630 million registered users across 150 countries. After the United States, the biggest markets for LinkedIn are India, China, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

  17. Instagram

    One of the most popular social media sites on the planet, the Facebook subsidiary Instagram — aka IG or Insta — allows users to post and comment on photos and videos. The site launched in 2010 and gained one million users within two months. Today, about one billion people worldwide maintain active accounts that they access at least once a month. More impressively, 500 million people use Instagram Stories every single day. Instagram was the fourth most downloaded app from 2010-2019, and it is available in 32 languages.

  18. Intuit

    An online platform that caters to small businesses, Intuit offers accounting, financial, and tax preparation software. Intuit’s two main platforms are QuickBooks and TurboTax. It also offers popular corporate products like ProConnect Tax Online and several payroll products. Fortune ranks Intuit number 11 on its 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and in 2019, the company earned $6.8 billion in revenue. Since many Intuit clients rely on the platform for their daily business operations, it enjoys high traffic volumes and lands at number 18 on our list.

  19. NY Times

    Though frequently lambasted as “failing,” the New York Times has turned its fortunes around over the past several years. Currently, the news media company boasts 4.5 million subscribers, with more than 3.5 million users paying for one or more of the publisher’s online products. Hailed by many as a so-called “paper of record,” the majority of Times subscribers check the site multiple times a day, making it a high-traffic destination. The stability of the company, however, is dependent on digital growth, and it hopes to reach 10 million digital subscribers over the next five years.

  20. Chase

    One of the “Big Four” banks in the United States, Chase manages nearly $3 trillion in assets and runs over 5,000 branches across the country. According to the company, almost half of American households have a Chase banking account, and the majority of those customers make use of the company’s digital portal. Chase’s robust online banking service lets account holders handle a myriad of tasks from paying bills to depositing checks. Chase’s considerable daily online traffic has earned it the 20th spot on our 20 most popular websites list.

There you have it, the 20 most popular websites! Very neat to see what moves occurred both up and down since last year! We guarantee some of these websites will still be on the list next year, but can’t wait to see what changes over the next year.

Dream of having your website appear on this list someday? Speak to the FreshySites team today and take the first step with expert web design and website support from the professionals.

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