Facebook’s web traffic continues to slide and the site is at risk of losing its second-place spot for most-visited websites to YouTube, a new study has found.

In the last two years, Facebook.com traffic has fallen from 8.5 billion visits to 4.7 billion, SimilarWeb revealed on last Wednesday. Meanwhile, YouTube’s traffic, which hit 4.5 billion visits in July, continues to surge and will soon top Facebook to become the second-most-popular website in the world behind Google. The world’s largest search company, Google had 15.2 billion visits last month, according to SimilarWeb data.

At first blush, that would sound like bad news for Facebook, which has been in the midst of controversy and trouble after privacy concerns and a stock price decline continue to affect the company. However, SimilarWeb said that the reason for Facebook’s decline has more to do with mobile success than anything else.

The researcher contends that many of Facebook’s users are turning to mobile apps instead of the browser to access the social network. In fact, Facebook app usage is growing and total engagement on the world’s largest social network is up.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s other platforms, including Instagram and Messenger, continue to grow and help bolster the company’s broader appeal. Instagram’s Android users, for instance, are now in the app 56 minutes each day, according to SimilarWeb. Last year, they were spending 27 minutes on the app.

Looking ahead, SimilarWeb argues that Facebook must be evaluated not on its own but as part of the broader Facebook “ecosystem” that includes Messenger and Instagram. The company, SimilarWeb argues, is focused on building its entire slate of services and not just its social network.

Still, SimilarWeb is predicting a “paradigm shift” in the world’s largest websites. In addition to YouTube capturing the second spot, SimilarWeb believes Amazon and its 2 billion monthly visits are primed to take the fourth spot from Yahoo.

研究发现，Facebook的网站流量不断下滑，而且有可能将访问量第二的位置拱手让给YouTube。

竞争信息分析机构SimilarWeb于上周三披露，两年来Facebook.com的月访问量已从85亿次降至47亿次。而YouTube 在7月的访问量已达到45亿次，并且仍在猛增，很快就会超过Facebook.com成为世界上第二大热门的网站，仅次于谷歌。SimilarWeb的数据显示，作为全球最大搜索引擎公司，谷歌上个月的访问量为152亿次。

乍看之下，这听起来像是Facebook的坏消息，况且外界对隐私的关注一直在给Facebook带来争议和麻烦，股价持续下跌的阴影也持续笼罩着这家公司。但SimilarWeb指出，Facebook的访问量减少，更多的是因为它在移动领域取得的成功，而非其他因素。

这家研究机构认为，许多Facebook用户已经转向移动app，而不是通过浏览器进入这个社交网络。实际上，作为世界上最大的社交网络，Facebook app的使用量不断增长，参与者总数也持续上升。

同时，Facebook的其他平台，包括Instagram和Messenger，也在继续成长，而这有助于提高Facebook的整体吸引力。SimilarWeb举例说，Instagram的安卓用户目前每天使用该app的平均时间为56分钟，而去年这个数字为27分钟。

放眼未来，SimilarWeb的看法是给Facebook估值时绝不能只考虑这家公司本身，而要将其视为整个Facebook生态系统的一部分，其他成员则包括Messenger和Instagram。SimilarWeb指出，Facebook的重点是打造全方位服务，而不仅是它的社交网络。

另外，SimilarWeb还预测世界上最大的几家网站将出现范式转移。除了YouTube跃居第二，月访问量20亿次的亚马逊也会迅速取代雅虎，坐上第四把交椅。（财富中文网我）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林