Anytime you type into the Chrome address bar, it starts to autocomplete the website address based on your most recent visited site.
I type “art” and it autocompletes to artic.edu (the Art Institute of Chicago’s website)
For fun I went through all the two-letter combinations starting with the letter a
aa – nothing. (Google search for aa)
ab – abc7chicago.com/watch/live
ac- acehardware.com
ad – adobe.com
ae – nothing
af – nothing
ag – nothing
ah – nothing
ai – nothing
aj – nothing
ak – nothing
al – nothing
am- amazon.com
an – nothing
ao – nothing
ap – apple.com
aq – aqicn.org/map/chicago
ar – artic.edu
as – nothing
at – nothing
au – nothing
av – nothing
aw – nothing
ax – nothing
ay – nothing
az – nothing
That’s kinda sad that most of the letters don’t result in a website. Maybe the autocomplete is based if I have a bookmark?
Anyhow, this got me thinking about how many DIFFERENT domains people visit in a year. A lot of the web has gotten consolidated into a handful of sites. And then AI furthers that even more, because now people don’t need to search and go to a site. You get the answer right inside AI.
I miss going to a ton of various websites. Actually, I think I still go to a variety of websites. But I wonder if other people do.
I exported my Chrome history (and this is my personal Chrome, not work). In the past four months, I have 1,164 unique domains.
The top ten? No surprises here:
- google.com – 12,304 visits
- facebook.com – 3,136
- ebay.com – 2,180
- instagram.com – 1,638
- bsky.app – 1,263
- spudart.org – 871
- amazon.com – 784
- flickr.com – 555
- chatgpt.com – 405
- mlb.com – 337
The long tail
The more interesting sites appear further down the list. Here are the domains I visited 12 times in four months (not 12 separate occasions, but 12 pages):
- unstamps.org
- thesinkboutique.com
- superarbor.io
- suntimes.com
- stackoverflow.com
- psychologytoday.com
- peacocktv.com
- openathens.net
- myfonts.com
- mixbook.com
- gotquestions.org
- giphy.com
- discoverdupage.com
- dictionary.com
- curiouskidsmuseum.org
- comc.com
- beanumber.github.io
Even in a world dominated by a handful of mega-sites, there’s still a surprising amount of variety if you look into the long tail.
It makes me wonder—do other people still wander across the web like this, or do most people stick to the top ten sites like clockwork?