Facebook is a web traffic powerhouse: in March 2024 approximately 16.6 billion visits were measured to the Facebook.com, making it one of the most-visited websites online. In the third quarter of 2023, Facebook had nearly three billion monthly active users.

As of March 2024, Google.com accounted for over 7.35 percent of referral traffic to Facebook.com. Facebook's second-largest referral traffic driver was msn.com, which generated 4.83 percent of referral traffic to the social media platform. Overall, referrals accounted for slightly less than two percent of traffic to Facebook.

Facebook referral traffic fell substantially to news sites between March 2021 and March 2024. Unilad.com had the highest share of social page views coming from Facebook, but at ** percent in 2024, this was half the share three years earlier. Most news sites got less than ** percent of their page views from Facebook.

In the six months ending March 2024, the United States accounted for 22.7 percent of traffic to the social network Facebook.com. Second-ranked Vietnam accounted for over five percent of traffic to the website.

Most people in Nigeria used mobile devices to access Facebook in November 2021. In that month, over ** percent of Facebook traffic in the country was generated by the use of mobiles. In contrast, only around two percent of the traffic was via computers.

In 2024, Facebook was the leading social media platform in most of the Southeast Asian countries in terms of traffic generation to other websites, with the highest share in Timor-Leste at around 97 percent. YouTube, X (Twitter), Instagram, and Pinterest were other platforms that had significant social media traffic shares in Southeast Asian markets that year. Social media advertising and web traffic referrals Traffic referrals from social media are crucial in social media advertising. Links shared on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter help direct potential customers to a brand’s website or landing page. This increases exposure, website visits, and conversions, such as sales or leads, which are key benefits of social media marketing according to marketers. Traffic referrals also serve as an important tool for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Furthermore, by analyzing which platforms and content generate the most traffic, businesses can refine their strategies to focus on the highest-performing channels. Social media advertising – a multibillion-dollar business Revenue from social media advertising has continued to rise rapidly. This growth was driven by the ability to track user behavior, refine ad targeting, and deliver highly personalized content. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok generate billions of dollars of ad revenue annually. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, Meta Platforms’s annual advertising revenue exceeded 160 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Countries such as China, Japan, and Australia are among the largest social media advertising markets in the Asia-Pacific region, with China’s projected social media ad spend reaching nearly 97 billion U.S. dollars in 2025.

As of March 2024, Youtube.com accounted for nearly 43 of social media referral traffic to Facebook.com. Facebook's second, third and fourth-largest social media traffic driver were messenger.com, web.whatsapp.com, and instagram.com, each generating over 12 percent of social media traffic to the social network. Overall, social media accounted for 1.95 percent of traffic referrals to Facebook.com.

Advantages and disadvantages of using targeted social media to aid study recruitment.

Preliminary research efforts regarding Social Media Platforms and their contribution to website traffic in LAMs. Through the Similar Web API, the leading social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn) that drove traffic to each one of the 220 cases in our dataset were identified and analyzed in the first sheet. Aggregated results proved that Facebook platform was responsible for 46.1% of social traffic (second sheet).

Example Quotes from Interviews with Physicians.

As of December 2024, Facebook had the largest share of web traffic referrals from social media in Saudi Arabia, at **** percent. In comparison, the platform X had a **** percent share of web traffic referrals that month.

To generate a representative dataset of real-world traffic in ISCX we defined a set of tasks, assuring that our dataset is rich enough in diversity and quantity. We created accounts for users Alice and Bob in order to use services like Skype, Facebook, etc. Below we provide the complete list of different types of traffic and applications considered in our dataset for each traffic type (VoIP, P2P, etc.)

We captured a regular session and a session over VPN, therefore we have a total of 14 traffic categories: VOIP, VPN-VOIP, P2P, VPN-P2P, etc. We also give a detailed description of the different types of traffic generated:

Browsing: Under this label we have HTTPS traffic generated by users while browsing or performing any task that includes the use of a browser. For instance, when we captured voice-calls using hangouts, even though browsing is not the main activity, we captured several browsing flows.

Email: The traffic samples generated using a Thunderbird client, and Alice and Bob Gmail accounts. The clients were configured to deliver mail through SMTP/S, and receive it using POP3/SSL in one client and IMAP/SSL in the other.

Chat: The chat label identifies instant-messaging applications. Under this label we have Facebook and Hangouts via web browsers, Skype, and IAM and ICQ using an application called pidgin [14].

Streaming: The streaming label identifies multimedia applications that require a continuous and steady stream of data. We captured traffic from Youtube (HTML5 and flash versions) and Vimeo services using Chrome and Firefox.

File Transfer: This label identifies traffic applications whose main purpose is to send or receive files and documents. For our dataset we captured Skype file transfers, FTP over SSH (SFTP) and FTP over SSL (FTPS) traffic sessions.

VoIP: The Voice over IP label groups all traffic generated by voice applications. Within this label we captured voice calls using Facebook, Hangouts and Skype.

TraP2P: This label is used to identify file-sharing protocols like Bittorrent. To generate this traffic we downloaded different .torrent files from a public a repository and captured traffic sessions using the uTorrent and Transmission applications.

The traffic was captured using Wireshark and tcpdump, generating a total amount of 28GB of data. For the VPN, we used an external VPN service provider and connected to it using OpenVPN (UDP mode). To generate SFTP and FTPS traffic we also used an external service provider and Filezilla as a client.

To facilitate the labeling process, when capturing the traffic all unnecessary services and applications were closed. (The only application executed was the objective of the capture, e.g., Skype voice-call, SFTP file transfer, etc.) We used a filter to capture only the packets with source or destination IP, the address of the local client (Alice or Bob).

The full research paper outlining the details of the dataset and its underlying principles:

Gerard Drapper Gil, Arash Habibi Lashkari, Mohammad Mamun, Ali A. Ghorbani, "Characterization of Encrypted and VPN Traffic Using Time-Related Features", In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy(ICISSP 2016) , pages 407-414, Rome, Italy.
ISCXFlowMeter has been written in Java for reading the pcap files and create the csv file based on selected features. The UNB ISCX Network Traffic (VPN-nonVPN) dataset consists of labeled network traffic, including full packet in pcap format and csv (flows generated by ISCXFlowMeter) also are publicly available for researchers.

For more information contact cic@unb.ca.

The UNB ISCX Network Traffic Dataset content
Traffic: Content
Web Browsing: Firefox and Chrome
Email: SMPTS, POP3S and IMAPS
Chat: ICQ, AIM, Skype, Facebook and Hangouts
Streaming: Vimeo and Youtube
File Transfer: Skype, FTPS and SFTP using Filezilla and an external service
VoIP: Facebook, Skype and Hangouts voice calls (1h duration)
P2P: uTorrent and Transmission (Bittorrent)
; cic@unb.ca.

Author: Víctor Yeste. Universitat Politècnica de Valencia.The object of this study is the design of a cybermetric methodology whose objectives are to measure the success of the content published in online media and the possible prediction of the selected success variables.In this case, due to the need to integrate data from two separate areas, such as web publishing and the analysis of their shares and related topics on Twitter, has opted for programming as you access both the Google Analytics v4 reporting API and Twitter Standard API, always respecting the limits of these.The website analyzed is hellofriki.com. It is an online media whose primary intention is to solve the need for information on some topics that provide daily a vast number of news in the form of news, as well as the possibility of analysis, reports, interviews, and many other information formats. All these contents are under the scope of the sections of cinema, series, video games, literature, and comics.This dataset has contributed to the elaboration of the PhD Thesis:Yeste Moreno, VM. (2021). Diseño de una metodología cibermétrica de cálculo del éxito para la optimización de contenidos web [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/176009Data have been obtained from each last-minute news article published online according to the indicators described in the doctoral thesis. All related data are stored in a database, divided into the following tables:tesis_followers: User ID list of media account followers.tesis_hometimeline: data from tweets posted by the media account sharing breaking news from the web.status_id: Tweet IDcreated_at: date of publicationtext: content of the tweetpath: URL extracted after processing the shortened URL in textpost_shared: Article ID in WordPress that is being sharedretweet_count: number of retweetsfavorite_count: number of favoritestesis_hometimeline_other: data from tweets posted by the media account that do not share breaking news from the web. Other typologies, automatic Facebook shares, custom tweets without link to an article, etc. With the same fields as tesis_hometimeline.tesis_posts: data of articles published by the web and processed for some analysis.stats_id: Analysis IDpost_id: Article ID in WordPresspost_date: article publication date in WordPresspost_title: title of the articlepath: URL of the article in the middle webtags: Tags ID or WordPress tags related to the articleuniquepageviews: unique page viewsentrancerate: input ratioavgtimeonpage: average visit timeexitrate: output ratiopageviewspersession: page views per sessionadsense_adunitsviewed: number of ads viewed by usersadsense_viewableimpressionpercent: ad display ratioadsense_ctr: ad click ratioadsense_ecpm: estimated ad revenue per 1000 page viewstesis_stats: data from a particular analysis, performed at each published breaking news item. Fields with statistical values can be computed from the data in the other tables, but total and average calculations are saved for faster and easier further processing.id: ID of the analysisphase: phase of the thesis in which analysis has been carried out (right now all are 1)time: "0" if at the time of publication, "1" if 14 days laterstart_date: date and time of measurement on the day of publicationend_date: date and time when the measurement is made 14 days latermain_post_id: ID of the published article to be analysedmain_post_theme: Main section of the published article to analyzesuperheroes_theme: "1" if about superheroes, "0" if nottrailer_theme: "1" if trailer, "0" if notname: empty field, possibility to add a custom name manuallynotes: empty field, possibility to add personalized notes manually, as if some tag has been removed manually for being considered too generic, despite the fact that the editor put itnum_articles: number of articles analysednum_articles_with_traffic: number of articles analysed with traffic (which will be taken into account for traffic analysis)num_articles_with_tw_data: number of articles with data from when they were shared on the media’s Twitter accountnum_terms: number of terms analyzeduniquepageviews_total: total page viewsuniquepageviews_mean: average page viewsentrancerate_mean: average input ratioavgtimeonpage_mean: average duration of visitsexitrate_mean: average output ratiopageviewspersession_mean: average page views per sessiontotal: total of ads viewedadsense_adunitsviewed_mean: average of ads viewedadsense_viewableimpressionpercent_mean: average ad display ratioadsense_ctr_mean: average ad click ratioadsense_ecpm_mean: estimated ad revenue per 1000 page viewsTotal: total incomeretweet_count_mean: average incomefavorite_count_total: total of favoritesfavorite_count_mean: average of favoritesterms_ini_num_tweets: total tweets on the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_retweet_count_total: total retweets on the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_retweet_count_mean: average retweets on the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_favorite_count_total: total of favorites on the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_favorite_count_mean: average of favorites on the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_followers_talking_rate: ratio of followers of the media Twitter account who have recently published a tweet talking about the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_user_num_followers_mean: average followers of users who have spoken of the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_user_num_tweets_mean: average number of tweets published by users who spoke about the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_user_age_mean: average age in days of users who have spoken of the terms on the day of publicationterms_ini_ur_inclusion_rate: URL inclusion ratio of tweets talking about terms on the day of publicationterms_end_num_tweets: total tweets on terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_retweet_count_total: total retweets on terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_retweet_count_mean: average retweets on terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_favorite_count_total: total bookmarks on terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_favorite_count_mean: average of favorites on terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_followers_talking_rate: ratio of media Twitter account followers who have recently posted a tweet talking about the terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_user_num_followers_mean: average followers of users who have spoken of the terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_user_num_tweets_mean: average number of tweets published by users who have spoken about the terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_user_age_mean: the average age in days of users who have spoken of the terms 14 days after publicationterms_ini_ur_inclusion_rate: URL inclusion ratio of tweets talking about terms 14 days after publication.tesis_terms: data of the terms (tags) related to the processed articles.stats_id: Analysis IDtime: "0" if at the time of publication, "1" if 14 days laterterm_id: Term ID (tag) in WordPressname: Name of the termslug: URL of the termnum_tweets: number of tweetsretweet_count_total: total retweetsretweet_count_mean: average retweetsfavorite_count_total: total of favoritesfavorite_count_mean: average of favoritesfollowers_talking_rate: ratio of followers of the media Twitter account who have recently published a tweet talking about the termuser_num_followers_mean: average followers of users who were talking about the termuser_num_tweets_mean: average number of tweets published by users who were talking about the termuser_age_mean: average age in days of users who were talking about the termurl_inclusion_rate: URL inclusion ratio

In Australia in 2025, Facebook was the leading source of web traffic referrals, driving **** percent of clicks or taps to third-party websites. In comparison, Instagram accounted for ** percent, while Pinterest contributed *** percent.

The global number of Facebook users was forecast to continuously increase between 2023 and 2027 by in total 391 million users (+14.36 percent). After the fourth consecutive increasing year, the Facebook user base is estimated to reach 3.1 billion users and therefore a new peak in 2027. Notably, the number of Facebook users was continuously increasing over the past years. User figures, shown here regarding the platform Facebook, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

*****Documentation Process***** 1. Data Preparation: - Upload the data into Power Query to assess quality and identify duplicate values, if any. - Verify data quality and types for each column, addressing any miswriting or inconsistencies. 2. Data Management: - Duplicate the original data sheet for future reference and label the new sheet as the "Working File" to preserve the integrity of the original dataset. 3. Understanding Metrics: - Clarify the meaning of column headers, particularly distinguishing between Impressions and Reach, and comprehend how Engagement Rate is calculated. - Engagement Rate formula: Total likes, comments, and shares divided by Reach. 4. Data Integrity Assurance: - Recognize that Impressions should outnumber Reach, reflecting total views versus unique audience size. - Investigate discrepancies between Reach and Impressions to ensure data integrity, identifying and resolving root causes for accurate reporting and analysis. 5. Data Correction: - Collaborate with the relevant team to rectify data inaccuracies, specifically addressing the discrepancy between Impressions and Reach. - Engage with the concerned team to understand the root cause of discrepancies between Impressions and Reach. - Identify instances where Impressions surpass Reach, potentially attributable to data transformation errors. - Following the rectification process, meticulously adjust the dataset to reflect the corrected Impressions and Reach values accurately. - Ensure diligent implementation of the corrections to maintain the integrity and reliability of the data. - Conduct a thorough recalculation of the Engagement Rate post-correction, adhering to rigorous data integrity standards to uphold the credibility of the analysis. 6. Data Enhancement: - Categorize Audience Age into three groups: "Senior Adults" (45+ years), "Mature Adults" (31-45 years), and "Adolescent Adults" (<30 years) within a new column named "Age Group." - Split date and time into separate columns using the text-to-columns option for improved analysis. 7. Temporal Analysis: - Introduce a new column for "Weekend and Weekday," renamed as "Weekday Type," to discern patterns and trends in engagement. - Define time periods by categorizing into "Morning," "Afternoon," "Evening," and "Night" based on time intervals. 8. Sentiment Analysis: - Populate blank cells in the Sentiment column with "Mixed Sentiment," denoting content containing both positive and negative sentiments or ambiguity. 9. Geographical Analysis: - Group countries and obtain additional continent data from an online source (e.g., https://statisticstimes.com/geography/countries-by-continents.php). - Add a new column for "Audience Continent" and utilize XLOOKUP function to retrieve corresponding continent data.

*****Drawing Conclusions and Providing a Summary*****

• The data is equally distributed across different categories, platforms, and over the years.
• Most of our audience comprises senior adults (aged 45 and above).
• Most of our audience exhibit mixed sentiments about our posts. However, an equal portion expresses consistent sentiments.
• The majority of our posts were located in Africa.
• The number of posts increased from the first year to the second year and remained relatively consistent for the third year.
• The optimal time for posting is during the night on weekdays.
• The highest engagement rates were observed in Croatia then Malawi.
• The number of posts targeting senior adults is significantly higher than the other two categories. However, the engagement rates for mature and adolescent adults are also noteworthy, based on the number of targeted posts.

Survey of 350 businesses on how much they spend on social media management and their social media management costs

Facebook received 73,390 user data requests from federal agencies and courts in the United States during the second half of 2023. The social network produced some user data in 88.84 percent of requests from U.S. federal authorities. The United States accounts for the largest share of Facebook user data requests worldwide.

Facebook accounted for the largest share of web traffic directed to third-party sites in India in 2024, amounting to around ** percent. This was followed by yet another Meta-owned platform, Instagram, with nearly ** percent of web referrals made via clicks or taps on links published on the platform.

As of December 2024, Facebook had the largest share of web traffic referrals from social media in the United Arab Emirates, at approximately ** percent. This was a *** percent increase over the previous year. YouTube and LinkedIn saw the biggest drop in traffic from 2023, falling by *** and *** percent, respectively.