Top 1000 data: Organic search is the top source of traffic

The most common way consumers reach a Top 1000 ecommerce site is by searching on Google and Bing and then clicking on an organic link, a web page the search engine deems relevant that is not an ad. The median percentage of traffic to Top 1000 sites from organic search was 50.0% in 2021, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis of traffic data from Similarweb. That’s well ahead of all other traffic sources, even though it declined slightly from 52.1% in 2020. Next comes direct links, which is when consumers navigate to a retailer’s site that they have bookmarked or type in the URL. The median share of direct traffic increased to 29.0% in 2021, from 27.9% the year prior. One noteworthy shift during the pandemic has been the increase in traffic from social media. Social networks like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounted for 7.0% of Top 1000 traffic in 2021. That was down slightly from 7.3% in 2020 but a significant increase from 2.9% in 2019, based on a Digital Commerce 360 analysis of Similarweb data.

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