Business
Mapped: The Uneven Recovery of U.S. Small Businesses
Mapped: The Uneven Recovery of U.S. Small Businesses
Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, employing nearly half of the private sector workforce.
Unfortunately, lockdown and work-from-home measures brought about by COVID-19 have disproportionately affected small businesses – particularly in the leisure and hospitality sectors.
As metro-level data from Opportunity Insights points out, geography makes a great deal of difference in the proportion of U.S. small businesses that have flipped their open sign. While some cities are mostly back to business as usual, others are in a situation where the majority of small businesses are still shuttered.
The Big Picture
In the U.S. as a whole, data suggests that nearly a quarter of all small businesses remain closed. Of course, the situation on the ground differs from place to place. Here’s how cities around the country are doing, sorted by percentage of small businesses closed as of September 2020:
| Metros | Small Businesses Closed | Small Businesses Closed (Leisure & Hosp.) |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | -49% | -65% |
| New Orleans | -45% | -72% |
| Honolulu | -41% | -39% |
| Washington DC | -37% | -55% |
| San Jose | -35% | -41% |
| Portland | -34% | -46% |
| San Antonio | -34% | -60% |
| Sacramento | -33% | -43% |
| Boston | -33% | -42% |
| Oakland | -32% | -52% |
| Austin | -32% | -65% |
| Bakersfield | -31% | -64% |
| Houston | -30% | -58% |
| Seattle | -28% | -47% |
| San Diego | -28% | -41% |
| Baltimore | -28% | -43% |
| Detroit | -28% | -44% |
| Los Angeles | -27% | -39% |
| Chicago | -27% | -37% |
| Tucson | -27% | -37% |
| Atlanta | -26% | -33% |
| Fresno | -26% | -50% |
| Oklahoma City | -26% | -56% |
| Cleveland | -26% | -39% |
| Denver | -26% | -56% |
| Indianapolis | -25% | -29% |
| Denver | -25% | -38% |
| El Paso | -25% | -34% |
| Philadelphia | -24% | -34% |
| Tulsa | -23% | -40% |
| Albuquerque | -23% | -42% |
| Colorado Springs | -23% | -37% |
| Louisville | -23% | -25% |
| Miami | -23% | -38% |
| Fort Worth | -22% | -34% |
| Las Vegas | -22% | -35% |
| Tampa | -22% | -45% |
| Milwaukee | -22% | -30% |
| New York City | -21% | -40% |
| Dallas | -21% | -38% |
| Memphis | -21% | -37% |
| Minneapolis | -21% | -36% |
| Nashville | -21% | -39% |
| Columbus | -21% | -35% |
| Phoenix | -19% | -36% |
| Jacksonville | -18% | -35% |
| Salt Lake City | -18% | -24% |
| Charlotte | -18% | -42% |
| Raleigh | -16% | -34% |
| Wichita | -15% | -29% |
| Kansas City | -15% | -24% |
| Omaha | -13% | -14% |
New Orleans and the Bay Area are still experiencing rates of small business closures that are almost double the national median.
Small businesses in the leisure and hospitality sector have been particularly hard hit, with 37% reporting no transaction data.
Getting Back to Business
Some cities are seeing rates of small business operation that are nearing pre-pandemic levels.
Of the cities covered in the data set, Omaha had the highest rate of small businesses open.
Still Shuttered
In cities with a large technology sector, such as San Francisco and Austin, COVID-19 is shaking up the economic patterns as entire companies switched to remote working almost overnight. This is bad news for the constellation of restaurants and services that cater to those workers.
Likewise, cities that have an economy built around serving visitors – Honolulu and New Orleans, for example – have seen a very high rate of small business closures as vacations and conferences have been paused indefinitely.
As the pandemic drags on, many of these temporary closures are looking to be permanent. Yelp recently reported that of the restaurants marked as closed on their platform, 61% are shut down permanently. As well, businesses in the retail and nightlife categories also saw more than half of closures become permanent.
In Remembrance of Revenue
A business being completely closed is a definitive measure, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Even for businesses that remained open, revenue is often far below pre-pandemic rates.
Once again, businesses in the leisure and hospitality sector have been hit the hardest, with revenue falling by almost half since the beginning of 2020.
At present, it’s hard to predict when, or even if, economic activity will completely recover. Though travel and some level of in-office work will eventually ramp back up, the small business landscape will continue to face major upheaval in the meantime.
Technology
Ranked: The Top 50 Most Visited Websites in the World
In this visualization, we rank the top 50 websites that receive the most internet traffic, from Google to CNN.
Ranked: The Top 50 Most Visited Websites in the World
Estimates vary, but there are upwards of two billion websites in existence in 2023.
If we were to rank all of these websites according to their traffic numbers, we would see a classic power law distribution. At the low end, the vast majority of these websites would be inactive, receiving little to no traffic. On the upper end of the ranking though, a handful of websites receive the lion’s share of internet traffic.
This visualization, using data from SimilarWeb, takes a look at the 50 websites that currently sit at the top of the ranking.
Which Websites Get the Most Traffic?
Topping the list of most-visited websites in the world is, of course, Google. With over 3.5 billion searches per day, Google has cemented its position as the go-to source for information on the internet. But Google’s dominance doesn’t stop there. The company also owns YouTube, the second-most popular website in the world. Together, Google and YouTube have more traffic than the next 48 websites combined.
The power of YouTube, in particular, is sometimes not fully understood. The video platform is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. As well, YouTube has the second highest duration-of-visit numbers in this top 50 ranking. (First place goes to the Chinese video sharing website, Bilibili.)
But Google and YouTube aren’t the only big players on the internet. Other websites in the top 50 ranking include social media giants Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In particular, TikTok has seen a surge in popularity in recent years and is now one of the most popular social media platforms in the world.
Here’s the full top 50 ranking table form:
| Rank | Website | Monthly Traffic | Category | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | google.com | 85.1B | Search Engines | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #2 | youtube.com | 33.0B | Streaming & Online TV | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #3 | facebook.com | 17.8B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #4 | twitter.com | 6.8B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #5 | instagram.com | 6.1B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #6 | baidu.com | 5.0B | Search Engines | 🇨🇳 China |
| #7 | wikipedia.org | 4.8B | Dictionaries & Encyclopedias | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #8 | yandex.ru | 3.4B | Search Engines | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| #9 | yahoo.com | 3.3B | News & Media Publishers | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #10 | whatsapp.com | 2.9B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #11 | xvideo.com | 2.8B | Adult | 🇨🇿 Czechia |
| #12 | amazon.com | 2.6B | Marketplace | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #13 | pornhub.com | 2.5B | Adult | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| #14 | xnxx.com | 2.3B | Adult | 🇫🇷 France |
| #15 | live.com | 2.1B | 🇺🇸 U.S. | |
| #16 | yahoo.co.jp | 2.1B | News & Media Publishers | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| #17 | netflix.com | 2.0B | Streaming & Online TV | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #18 | tiktok.com | 1.8B | Social Media Networks | 🇨🇳 China |
| #19 | docomo.ne.jp | 1.8B | Telecommunications | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| #20 | reddit.com | 1.7B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #21 | office.com | 1.6B | Prog. & Developer Software | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #22 | linkedin.com | 1.6B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #23 | dzen.ru | 1.4B | Faith & Beliefs | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| #24 | samsung.com | 1.4B | Consumer Electronics | 🇰🇷 S. Korea |
| #25 | vk.com | 1.4B | Social Media Networks | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| #26 | xhamster.com | 1.3B | Adult | 🇨🇾 Cyprus |
| #27 | turbopages.org | 1.3B | News & Media Publishers | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| #28 | mail.ru | 1.2B | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| #29 | naver.com | 1.2B | News & Media Publishers | 🇰🇷 S. Korea |
| #30 | bing.com | 1.2B | Search Engines | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #31 | microsoftonline.com | 1.1B | Prog. & Developer Software | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #32 | discord.com | 1.1B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #33 | twitch.tv | 1.1B | Gaming & Accessories | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #34 | bilibili.com | 1.0B | Animations & Comics | 🇨🇳 China |
| #35 | pinterest.com | 1.0B | Social Media Networks | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #36 | zoom.us | 985.9M | Computers Electronics & Tech | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #37 | weather.com | 985.7M | Weather | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #38 | qq.com | 907.1M | News & Media Publishers | 🇨🇳 China |
| #39 | microsoft.com | 902.3M | Prog. & Developer Software | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #40 | msn.com | 870.8M | News & Media Publishers | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #41 | globo.com | 840.1M | News & Media Publishers | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| #42 | duckduckgo.com | 839.0M | Search Engines | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #43 | roblox.com | 795.7M | Gaming & Accessories | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #44 | quora.com | 775.9M | Dictionaries & Encyclopedias | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #45 | news.yahoo.co.jp | 749.1M | News & Media Publishers | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| #46 | ebay.com | 728.0M | Marketplace | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #47 | aajtak.in | 724.1M | News & Media Publishers | 🇮🇳 India |
| #48 | nytimes.com | 702.2M | News & Media Publishers | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #49 | realsrv.com | 688.0M | Adult | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
| #50 | cnn.com | 684.9M | News & Media Publishers | 🇺🇸 U.S. |
Notable companies that have fallen out of the top 50 since our last version of this visualization are Walmart and PayPal. Notable entrants into the top 50 are Samsung and the New York Times.
The Geography of the 50 Most-Visited Websites
The United States is still home base for many of the world’s biggest websites, taking up 30 spots on this ranking. Of these 30 websites, half are operated by Big Tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Netflix.
Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea round out the top five.
Things get interesting in the “other” category, which includes six websites. Two spots are taken up by Aaj Tak and Globo, which are large media publications in India and Brazil, respectively.
The remaining four websites—XVideos, PornHub, XHamster, and XNXX—specialize in adult content, and are located in a variety of countries. These are often referred to as “tube sites” since they are built on the YouTube model.
Realsrv, the only adult-oriented site in the top 50 located in the U.S., is interesting to delve into as well, since it’s far from a household name. The website essentially supports advertising efforts by redirecting users away from the content they were viewing over to another page (generally premium adult content). This is one of the key ways that adult websites earn revenue.
Where does this data come from?
Source: SimilarWeb
Notes: Websites listed include “all meaningful subdomains”, and categories in the graphic follow SimilarWeb’s categorization system. This is the third version of this graphic. As with previous versions, we aim to use data from November for the sake of consistency and to avoid seasonal fluctuations in traffic. One important detail to point out is that website traffic does not include app traffic, which is why popular platforms like WeChat don’t appear in this ranking.
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