- Ancestry.com: Global Rank 662, U.S. Rank 219
- FindaGrave.com: Global Rank 3,418, U.S. Rank 996
- FamilySearch.org: Global Rank 3,973, U.S. Rank 1,270
- MyHeritage.com: Global Rank 7,188, U.S. Rank 4,044
- Geni.com: Global Rank 8,611, U.S. Rank 4,067
- GenealogyBank.com: Global Rank 22,394, U.S. Rank 7,052
- Mocavo.com: Global Rank 28,982, U.S. Rank 9,637
- findmypast.com: Global Rank 71,191, U.S. Rank 18,844
- Arkivverket Digitalarkivet: Global Rank 119,294, Norway Rank 683
Several of these websites have branch websites in other countries such as Ancestry.co.uk etc. that are separately ranked so it is difficult to ascertain the actual amount of traffic for the entire entity.
As a side note, ranking is meaningless if the website does not have the records of your ancestors you are searching for.
It is obvious, even from this very limited list, that the ranking will begin to drop off rapidly if I were to add any more websites (i.e. the numbers will get larger). It is hard to imagine the number of visitors to a website in the top 1000 so there is a significant difference between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org in the amount of traffic. Some time ago, GenealogyInTime Magazine listed the top 100 and top 10 genealogy websites. The top 10 genealogy websites were listed by the number of daily visitors. It is interesting that even though this list was compiled during 2014, one of the websites, Genealogy.com, has already been discontinued by Ancestry.com, the owner of the website. As usual, the Web continues is volatility. It should also be noted that FindAGrave.com was purchased by Ancestry.com in September of 2013.
Because of the common ownership of many of the larger websites, such as the fact that MyHeritage.com now owns Geni.com (see "MyHeritage Acquires Geni.com and Raises $25m in New Funding Round" in November, 2012), it is really quite impossible to get an accurate idea of the relative size or ranking of these online entities. Another example of the difficulty in ascertaining an accurate ranking is the fact that NewsBank.com, the owner of GenealogyBank.com, is ranked globaly at 54,840 and 13,578 in the U.S. This is likely due to the fact that NewsBank.com is a subscription website sold to libraries.
So, if I were to combine the owned entities above, the list would be much shorter. Here are the entities with the same or common ownership:
As a side note, ranking is meaningless if the website does not have the records of your ancestors you are searching for.
It is obvious, even from this very limited list, that the ranking will begin to drop off rapidly if I were to add any more websites (i.e. the numbers will get larger). It is hard to imagine the number of visitors to a website in the top 1000 so there is a significant difference between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org in the amount of traffic. Some time ago, GenealogyInTime Magazine listed the top 100 and top 10 genealogy websites. The top 10 genealogy websites were listed by the number of daily visitors. It is interesting that even though this list was compiled during 2014, one of the websites, Genealogy.com, has already been discontinued by Ancestry.com, the owner of the website. As usual, the Web continues is volatility. It should also be noted that FindAGrave.com was purchased by Ancestry.com in September of 2013.
Because of the common ownership of many of the larger websites, such as the fact that MyHeritage.com now owns Geni.com (see "MyHeritage Acquires Geni.com and Raises $25m in New Funding Round" in November, 2012), it is really quite impossible to get an accurate idea of the relative size or ranking of these online entities. Another example of the difficulty in ascertaining an accurate ranking is the fact that NewsBank.com, the owner of GenealogyBank.com, is ranked globaly at 54,840 and 13,578 in the U.S. This is likely due to the fact that NewsBank.com is a subscription website sold to libraries.
So, if I were to combine the owned entities above, the list would be much shorter. Here are the entities with the same or common ownership:
This analysis can get even more complicated when you take into account the various agreements between the entities. For example, records from FamilySearch.org are showing up on Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com. Do record sharing arrangements affect ranking? Who knows?
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