Meta's Threads Blunder: 10 Million Visitors Redirected to Unaffiliated App, Downloads Soar

Threads(.com), a Slack competitor unaffiliated with Meta’s new social network, received over 10 million site traffic in the first two weeks since Threads(.net) launched.

The work app has seen its global website ranking skyrocket from 545,741 to 5,813 in just two weeks.

Threads’ Google Play profile shows downloads have surged by over one million in July, up from 2,600 average downloads per month. 

While Meta’s Twitter killer Threads has seen its user engagement plummet by as high as 70%, it turns out that Threads(.com), a Slack competitor unaffiliated with Meta’s new social network, continues to benefit from Meta’s Threads after its traffic explodes by 12,148%, from 88,011 monthly visits to over 10 million in two weeks, according to the analysis of SimilarWeb data.

The analysis by small business advice company Venture Smarter reveals that the work app has catapulted over 10x in global site rankings, nearing the top 5,000.

The number of visits has exploded exploded to over 122 times June traffic levels before Meta’s Threads launched in July. Threads(.com)’s traffic surged from 88,011 visits in June to 10.78 million in July, skyrocketing by 12,148% in a single month as users attempted to visit the social network.

With 90 million visits in July, this means just over one in ten went to the unaffiliated Threads instead of Meta-owned Threads’ during the same time period.

The largest increase was seen on July 6, when over 2.5 million visitors navigated the website in a single day. Sharing a name with the latest social network has caused Threads(.com) to skyrocket in global website ranking from 545,741st to 5,813th in just two weeks.

U.S. site rankings also saw a similar uplift from 208,486th place to 8,331st.

Analysis of its Google Play profile reveals downloads to the work app shot up from over 100,000 to over one million in a single month. Before Meta’s Threads launched, the app received around 2,600 monthly downloads.

The work communication app was founded by three former Facebook (Meta) employees: Jon McCord, Mark Rich, and Rousseau Kazi.

Jon Morgan, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Venture Smarter commented on the findings:

“Threads work app has won the lottery for sharing a brand name with Meta’s latest social network, resulting in millions of traffic accidentally landing on its website. While some may argue that the traffic is irrelevant, as it was meant for the social network, analysis of the company’s app page has shown that the accidental traffic surge has resulted in millions of new downloads and a huge awareness boost of the work tool, surely boosting the company’s value and online rankings overnight. It’s also a valuable lesson to CEOs in securing all domains users may use to find your business, or you could benefit the wrong company”.

The study was conducted by Venture Smarter, a small business advice company.

Fig 1: Threads(dot)com June vs. July 2023 (As of July 22) traffic and global rank

Fig 2: Threads(dot)com receives 2.516 million visits on July 6

Fig 3: Meta’s Threads(dot)net last 28 days traffic (As of July 22)

Fig 4: Threads(.com) Google Play app store has 100,000+ downloads July 06, and over 1,000,000+ as of July 26