Facebook was already punishing publishers before it announced its big newsfeed change
Last month, Facebook announced its plans to deter the spread of fake news on the social network by prioritizing user generated content (think baby pictures) above professional content created by publishers. The change gave many content publishers cause for concern: Would the social media giant's move reduce traffic to their sites ?
Turns out, it's a problem they were already experiencing. As this chart by Statista, based on data from Shareaholic, shows, visits to websites that originated on Facebook experienced a dramatic drop in the second half of 2017. As Facebook drives less and less traffic to outside sites, content creators might begin to shift their social media efforts to Pinterest, which is gradually driving more traffic overtime.
