Move over Google — TikTok is 2021's most popular website, according to new data from Cloudflare, a web security and performance company.
TikTok, which last year was "only ranked #7 or #8" on Cloudflare's list, climbed the ranks to nab the no. 1 spot, according to company.
The company said it tracks data using its tool “Cloudflare Radar,” which it launched in September 2020. That means the data from last year encompass only September to December, while 2021 encompasses the full year.
"It was on February 17, 2021, that TikTok got the top spot for a day," Cloudflare wrote in its year-in-review blog post. "Back in March, TikTok got a few more days and also in May, but it was after August 10, 2021, that TikTok took the lead on most days. There were some days when Google was #1, but October and November were mostly TikTok’s days, including on Thanksgiving (November 25) and Black Friday (November 26)."
Behind Google this year, Cloudflare ranked Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Twitter and WhatsApp, in that order.
In addition to being crowned the most popular domain by Cloudflare, TikTok also overtook Facebook as the most popular social media website.
"In what was the second year of the pandemic, social media domains continued high on our ranking," Cloudflare wrote in its blog. "The nine main social media applications were all in our top 100 list of most popular global domains ... We can see that TikTok ... took Facebook from its crown of the most popular social media website-domain in our ranking."
Kalhan Rosenblatt is a reporter covering youth and internet culture for NBC News, based in New York.
