The Beauty of Top 10 Posts for Supercharged Traffic

Top 10 lists will always gather attention. Before David Letterman, Malcom Forbes, and the early European media publishers, lists thrived.

People love lists, so lists get read. They are fast to skim and easy to digest. It also gives the reader an idea of what they are going to get once they click on your page.

Delivering results that meet expectations is the baseline of building trust with users so they will want to continue to read what you have to offer.

It is very easy to scan lists, which makes them ideal for the web. Also, people love to see things ranked and ordered. Structured information is best suited for our brains.

Below is an excellent example of a top-x list: timely, controversial, ubiquitous (if you are reading this you are online)

Here are Media Metrix’s top 15 Web properties from  before the dot com crash. Monthly unique visitors rounded to the nearest million.

1. AOL (46 million unique visitors) Yes the newbie network really was #1 back in 1 the day.
2. Microsoft (32 million unique visitors) Being a big monopoly has its advantages online.
3. Yahoo (31 million unique visitors) started out as a human edited directory.
4. Lycos (29 million unique visitors): Sold more often than a fruitcake at Christmas.
5. Go Network (21 million unique visitors): Disney’s star crossed attempt to dethrone Yahoo
6. GeoCities (19 million unique visitors). animated gif hosting for the masses.
7. The Excite Network (17 million unique visitors): Once-mighty Excite collapsed years ago, but its site remains in business as part of Mindspark, a minor outpost of the IAC empire. IAC controls the Ask Network, which is the sixth largest Web property with 73 million unique visitors.
8. Time Warner Online (13 million unique visitors): Not counting AOL, which it owns today,  Time Warner network is the 33rd largest Web property, with 25 million unique visitors.
9. Blue Mountain Arts (12 million unique visitors). famous for selling itself for nearly 1 billion dollars while earning nearly zero revenue giving away digital goods.
10. AltaVista (11 million unique visitors): The original hot search engine is now a sad front end for Yahoo Search, and therefore presumably rolled up into Yahoo’s ComScore numbers.
11. Amazon.com (10 million unique visitors) remember when they only sold books?
12. Xoom.com (9 million unique visitors) a miniature empire of Web services, including free hosting, clip-art downloads, and psudo-social services.
13. Snap (9 million unique visitors): CNet’s attempt to build a Yahoo-like portal, then became a joint venture with NBC.
14. Real Networks (8 million unique visitors): The online media company with ubiquitous media player adware software.
15. Cnet (8 million unique visitors): tech site network was bought by NBC

The new additions for this year

1. Google (151 million unique visitors): The super simple search system and do no evil philosophy has led Google to become a ruthless competitor, leaving hundreds of unfortunate web properties in the deadpool.
2. Fox Interactive (85 million unique visitors): MySpace is the heart of this online empire, but it has arrhythmia at the moment.
3. eBay (70 million unique visitors): How many more online garage sales do people need?
4. Wikimedia Network (61 million unique visitors): RIP Encyclopedia Britannica, Encarta, World Book Encycopedia – welcome to collective user sourced facts.
5. Facebook (61 million unique visitors). Could potentially be the site with the longest user engagement.
6. Apple (53 million unique visitors). sneaking iTunes in through the backdoor of the record labels was a genious move.
7. Glam Network (52 million unique visitors). Ad network of more than 500 independent pop culture sites. Gossip and fashion FTW, we might as well paint the Tubes pink.
8. Turner Network (47 million unique visitors): Online news is hot, no matter what Sam Zell says.
9. Viacom Digital (47 million unique visitors): MTV is the standout

The top 15 Websites are Google, Yahoo, Youtube, Facebook, Microsoft sites, AOL, eBay, Wikimedia, Amazon, Apple, Glam, Turner, and Viacom. Which ones will still be strong next year, and which will be in the deadpool?

Details about the top 15 web properties were collected from news sites around the internet.