While big sites such as Google and Facebook get the most attention and dominate web rankings, it is the smaller sites that often drive the most mobile web traffic. This is according to Opera Software, makers of the free Opera browser. <\/p>\n
In its August State of the Mobile Web report, Opera Software says that during the course of August its Opera Mini browser was used to view more than 4,1 billion pages globally. Of that number, 87 sites generated about half of the traffic. The other half of the traffic was generated by the other 12 million sites. <\/p>\n
The theory of the "Long Tail" was first defined by writer Chris Anderson in a Wired article and expanded upon in his book, "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More". <\/p>\n
The Opera Mini survey bears out his theory that while just a handful sites account for a large portion of the global web traffic, the smaller sites together account for almost as much. <\/p>\n
"In most areas of the world, people are visiting a full range of Web sites," says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software. "The evidence of the Long Tail on the mobile Web proves people will browse the Web on their phone just like they do on their home PCs, where the value of the Long Tail has been shown repeatedly. This is also exactly why the Web beats all manner of other mobile platforms and our vision of One Web is becoming a reality."<\/p>\n
In South Africa the trend is even more pronounced with the top 100 sites by page views accounting for just 38% of the traffic generated. The remaining traffic is generated by the smaller sites. <\/p>\n