Rand Fishkin asked this question the other day:
Is there a list of all the domains Google Analytics considers to be “social” in their referrals section?
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) November 14, 2012
So I started rifling through all of the biggest clients I have access to and compiling a list. I’m sure this list isn’t exhaustive, but it does seem to be pretty comprehensive (248 at the time of writing).
Ilya Grigorik, Developer Advocate at Google, said that Google hasn’t intentionally kept the list secret in this tweet to Rand:
@randfish @thenextcorner we definitely talked about publishing it – may have just slipped on the todo list.. not a secret list!
— Ilya Grigorik (@igrigorik) November 14, 2012
But until Google releases its list, mine is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. :)
The List
Without further adieu, here they are:
- StumbleUpon
- Blogger
- Yahoo! Answers
- WordPress
- Tumblr
- YouTube
- WikiAnswers
- TypePad
- LiveJournal
- Google+
- VKontakte
- Askville
- Ning
- Wikia
- HootSuite
- Delicious
- Weebly
- Sina Weibo
- Fark
- Douban
- FC2
- orkut
- Diigo
- Netvibes
- Bloglines
- Naver
- Scribd
- Hacker News
- Ameba
- Quora
- Instapaper
- Disqus
- Last.fm
- Plurk
- Meetup
- Renren
- Toolbox.com
- Digg
- tinyURL
- mixi
- Answerbag
- deviantART
- Taringa!
- Before It’s News
- paper.li
- Yuku
- CafeMom
- Posterous
- Tuenti
- Squidoo
- Flickr
- Multiply
- Yahoo! Bookmarks
- SlideShare
- NowPublic
- TripAdvisor
- Ravelry
- Read It Later
- Xanga
- ChicagoNow
- Eons
- Spoke
- BlogHer
- AOL Answers
- BuzzFeed
- Flavors.me
- Gather
- GovLoop
- Jigsaw
- Odnoklassniki
- Care2
- Slashdot
- Draugiem.lv
- Bebo
- goo blog
- My Opera
- Goodreads
- SodaHead
- Yelp
- cocolog
- CouchSurfing
- Myspace
- FriendFeed
- Blurtit
- Gaia Online
- MyFamily
- Pinboard
- Topix
- Vimeo
- Grono.net
- MocoSpace
- Wretch
- Formspring
- Hatena Diary
- Oshiete! goo
- OUTeverywhere
- Techmeme
- 43things
- allvoices
- aSmallWorld
- Dailymotion
- Focus
- HubPages
- Stack Exchange
- Stack Overflow
- TravBuddy
- TweetDeck
- bitly
- Cloob
- Cyworld
- Experience Project
- Facebook Apps
- Google Groups
- MyAnimeList
- ScienceStage
- ShareThis
- Spruz
- TweetMeme
- Ustream
- Yahoo! Message
- Academia
- ActiveRain
- Blogster
- Brizzly
- Buzznet
- Classmates
- Drugs-Forum
- foursquare
- goo.gl
- Hatena Bookmark
- InterPals
- iWiW
- LibraryThing
- nk.pl
- OKWave
- Tagged
- VampireFreaks.com
- wikiHow
- Polyvore
- Kaboodle
- gutefrage.net
- Associated Content
- BlackPlanet
- OnSugar
- Sales Spider
- Fanpop
- Circle Of Moms
- myYearbook
- InsaneJournal
- Babyblog
- WeeWorld
- blogTV
- AmericanTowns
- Mister Wong
- Baby Gaga
- GoldenLine
- Playlist.com
- CaringBridge
- Justin.tv
- BigTent
- MiGente.com
- blogcu
- Open Diary
- Stickam
- Habbo
- Jappy
- Kaixin001
- metroFLOG
- SocialVibe
- Wikitravel
- YouPet
- Second Life
- IMVU
- Super User
- Photobucket
- Blogs.com
- hi5
- Ask Ubuntu
- CG Hub
- SmallWorlds
- Kaneva
- Viadeo
- Sonico
- Wakoopa
- Glassdoor
- YouSayToo
- Youku
- ImageShack
- My Modern Met
- ibibo
- 51.com
- Friendster
- Ku6
- Netlog
- Screen Rant
- Hyves
- webOS Nation
- WPCentral
- Redux
- studiVZ
- Blogsome
- CrackBerry Forums
- Ameba Now
- AOL Lifestream
- Crunchyroll
- DailyBooth
- Fotolog
- gamerDNA
- InterNations
- meinVZ
- PengYou
- Piczo
- Ready2Beat
- Skyrock
- Tudou
- Wer-weiss-was
- Yaplog
- Dianping
- Listography
- blogg.no
- Partyflock
- Biip.no
- IRC-Galleria
- Fotki
- Pixiv
- Nexopia
- CozyCot
- FFFFOUND!
- Faceparty
- Wattpad
- Badoo
- BlogGang
- TeenSpot
- Yahoo! Pulse
- fubar
- WAYN
- Catster
- DowneLink
- FetLife
- Wer-kennt-wen
- Webshots
Whose even heard of half of these sites? O.o
So you don’t have to scrape the list (heh), I’m keeping an ongoing list in this Google Doc if you want to save it to your Google Docs for future reference as well.
Find Out Which Ones Drive Traffic To Your Site(s)
You can find out which of these sites are driving traffic to your site(s) in GA, and please let me know if you find some I missed by emailing me at annie(at)annielytics.com. I always link in gratitude. :)
BTW, to see if you found one I didn’t, first take note how many are on my list. Then just copy my list into Excel, add your networks to the bottom of the list. (Press Ctrl/Command-Down Arrow to jump to the bottom.) Then select the whole column by clicking on the letter at the top, and go to Data > Data Tools > Remove Duplicates (Mac: Data > Tools > Remove Duplicates). If you found some I didn’t, they’ll be at the bottom of the list.
Photo by olarte.ollie.
