

Is Facebook one of the Largest Referrers to Porn? - ohashi
http://www.kevinohashi.com/28/12/2010/facebook-one-largest-referrers-porn

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nbpoole
Short answer: no

Lets take a look at the clickstreams for some non-porn websites:

\- <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/google.com#clickstream>

\- <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aol.com#clickstream>

\- <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#clickstream>

\-
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com#clickstre...](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com#clickstream)

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).

~~~
Groxx
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.

~~~
nbpoole
...which is still somewhat disturbing :P

~~~
Groxx
No disagreement there :)

Perhaps more disturbing than the upstream: the _downstream_ is noticeably
higher in favor of Facebook. So, after people have browsed their porn, they go
_to_ Facebook. Looking for...?

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grantbachman
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.

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unfletch
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.

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keegangrayson
Where ARE the referrals coming from? And why do people view porn after looking
at photos of friends?

~~~
pmorici
There are only a limited number of things typical people regularly do online,
I'd be willing to bet the list for a large chunk is something like

1\. Email 2\. Facebook 3\. Porn

In which case you have a 1 in 3 chance that porn follows Facebook.

~~~
mh-
no, 1 in 2 chance. unless you suppose they can go to facebook after going to
facebook.

~~~
pmorici
Well you have the permutations,

(email, Facebook, porn)

(email, porn, Facebook)

(porn, email, Facebook)

(Facebook, email, porn)

(Facebook, porn, email)

(porn, Facebook, email)

That is 3! or 6 total possibilities, 2 of which involved porn immediately
following Facebook. which is 1 in 3... ...How do you figure 1 in 2?

~~~
stratomorph
On the other hand, you've disregarded the possibility of continuing to browse
after doing three things (or stopping prior to three things). If browsing is
an endless stream, then facebook has to be followed by one of the other two,
which is the angle he was working from. Depends how you frame the question and
what assumptions you make; it's ill-defined right now.

Edit: On another note, in his place I would have sanitized my own history; a
screenshot showing redtube and tube8 in the "visited" style is tacky, to say
the least.

~~~
nbpoole
I'm sure there's an innocent explanation! Maybe he was performing some "hands-
on" research? :-P

~~~
shrikant
Hidden mid-post: _Note: for those wondering how these were chosen, I used
related links on Alexa to find some big sites_

Suuuure :)

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alphaoverlord
How are these statistics obtained?

~~~
jey
To a first approximation:

    
    
      return rand();
    

It's Alexa toolbar data and therefore pretty unreliable.

------
tzury
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.

