4 ms·

Is Facebook one of the Largest Referrers to Porn?

16 points by ohashi 16y ago

grantbachman 16y ago
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.
unfletch 16y ago
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.
keegangrayson 16y ago
Where ARE the referrals coming from? And why do people view porn after looking at photos of friends?
- pmorici 16y ago
  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- 16y ago
    no, 1 in 2 chance. unless you suppose they can go to facebook after going to facebook.
    - pmorici 16y ago
      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 16y ago
        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 16y ago
        I'm sure there's an innocent explanation! Maybe he was performing some "hands-on" research? :-P
        shrikant 16y ago
        Hidden mid-post: Note: for those wondering how these were chosen, I used related links on Alexa to find some big sites Suuuure :)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- Tautology 16y ago
  Sexy friends maybe?
  - revorad 16y ago
    Then why leave?
alphaoverlord 16y ago
How are these statistics obtained?
- jey 16y ago
  To a first approximation: return rand(); It's Alexa toolbar data and therefore pretty unreliable.
nbpoole 16y ago
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/google.com#clickstream - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aol.com#clickstream http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aol.com#clickstream - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#clickstream http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#clickstream - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com#clickstream http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com#clickstre... 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).
- kwamenum86 16y ago
  So they are not relying on the http header or document.referrer? Seems a little silly...
  - nbpoole 16y ago
    Well, it appears that they're trying to track something more general than that. Whether that more general data is valuable or not is a different question. :-P
- Groxx 16y ago
  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.
tzury 16y ago
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.

16 points by ohashi 16y ago

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.

unfletch 16y ago

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.

keegangrayson 16y ago

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

pmorici 16y ago
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- 16y ago
  no, 1 in 2 chance. unless you suppose they can go to facebook after going to facebook.
  - pmorici 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      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 16y ago
        I'm sure there's an innocent explanation! Maybe he was performing some "hands-on" research? :-P
        shrikant 16y ago
        Hidden mid-post: Note: for those wondering how these were chosen, I used related links on Alexa to find some big sites Suuuure :)
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
Tautology 16y ago
Sexy friends maybe?
- revorad 16y ago
  Then why leave?

alphaoverlord 16y ago

How are these statistics obtained?

jey 16y ago
To a first approximation: return rand(); It's Alexa toolbar data and therefore pretty unreliable.

nbpoole 16y ago

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/google.com#clickstream - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aol.com#clickstream http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aol.com#clickstream - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#clickstream http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#clickstream - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com#clickstream http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com#clickstre... 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).

kwamenum86 16y ago
So they are not relying on the http header or document.referrer? Seems a little silly...
- nbpoole 16y ago
  Well, it appears that they're trying to track something more general than that. Whether that more general data is valuable or not is a different question. :-P
Groxx 16y ago
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.

tzury 16y ago

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.