The Most Popular Websites in Singapore
Ever wondered which were the top websites that got the most traffic and were most used by Singaporeans? If you go through website rankings based on visitor traffic, you will realize that over 80% of the top 500 websites visited by Singaporeans are actually foreign websites. The big five?
- Faceboook
- YouTube
- Yahoo
- Wikipedia
The top three sites tend to hold the three top spots universally all over the world in varying orders so its no surprise its the same in Singapore. They are usually followed by staple sites such as linkedin, amazon, wordpress, and twitter.
But what about the most popular local websites? Did you know just three locally grown sites made it to the top 20? To find the most popular Singaporean sites we’ve went through the ranking list filtering out all the global websites. The results may shock you.
The Top 20 Most Popular Singapore Websites
#20 Stomp
Local Site Ranking: 20 | 
Global Singapore Ranking: 89
Love or hate it, stomp has held commanding presence in the online space ever since its inception in 2006. Our stomp TSL reviews have left it with an abysmal score of just 33%. Some argue that it was a really smart creation by the government to distract the people with silly stuff so they don’t focus on the important. But tons of people do keep visiting them so they do have their own way of providing entertainment.
I feel they have produced a lot of negative externalities in our culture like the fear of getting stomped, and negative news spreading quickly. Something we didn’t need in our already tense lives. Oh well!
#19 ST Classifieds
Local Site Ranking: 19 | Global Singapore Ranking: 88
ST Classifieds is a listing directory that facilitates a consumer-to-consumer marketplace. Think Ebay but without the bidding wars. Their recent partnership with local start-up app Carousell allows ST Classifieds to display their inventory on their website. It just goes to show how savvy the strategic team behind SPH is and I guess acquisition will follow soon after they ‘test the water.’
Like Stomp and another successful SPH initiative omy, this was a website they built from scratch. In the race between the two media monopolizers SPH and MediaCorp to diversify their traditional media offerings and go digital, SPH has taken a commanding lead. SPH owns 6 website properties in the top 20 whereas Mediacorp has none.
#18 InSing
Local Site Ranking: 18 | Global Singapore Ranking: 84
Singtel owned inSing is a consumer lifestyle portal with a lot of verticals from having their own deals portal to providing movie and event information. What Singtel has to do with lifestyle I still do not know, I don’t see the potential synergy that Mediacorp or SPH could have with it. Maybe rewards?
I’m also confused about what the website does because I see so many things that other sites do better for e.g For deals – deal.com.sg, For events – timeout, For travel – any travel agency. So each time I really try for a bit to use the site but I always end up closing it in frustration.
In terms of traffic they have succeeded very well and two years ago they even acquired hungrygowhere. Though it still isn’t sleekly integrated with their website yet, their combined traffic is very scary and InSing is a portal they have built from scratch to this size, so kudos to Singtel’s foray in the digital media space!
#17 Singapore Pools
Local Site Ranking: 17 | Global Singapore Ranking: 81
Singapore Pools is a unique case. What happens when you are the only legal lottery operator in Singapore? People go to your website, congrats!
#16 Singapore Exchange
Local Site Ranking: 16 | Global Singapore Ranking: 80
SGX is an investment holding company that provides trading services.
#15 Singpass
Local Site Ranking: 15 | Global Singapore Ranking: 78
I’m not even sure if this can be considered a real site in this list but SingPass provides virtual accounts that are tied to your NRIC to make access of government applications easier.
I have a lot of love for the government’s effort to go digital, facilitating many services in Singapore making it possible to do them from the comfort of your home. This is one area the government has done well in and credit should be given where its due!
#14 United Overseas Bank
Local Site Ranking: 15 | Global Singapore Ranking: 64
UOB is popular with Singaporeans and in fact banks are really popular, or more like essential for day to day activities – with three banks in total making the top 20 list.
#13 TheRealSingapore
Local Site Ranking: 13 | Global Singapore Ranking: 59
The most remarkable entry in this list is the story of TheRealSingapore. We have never witnessed such a meteoric rise in rankings like this before. In the online world, they are the third biggest media in Singapore, ahead of mainstream media like ZaoBao, Today, The New Paper, etc.
And they are run by volunteers and public contributors! There is no crazy 7 figure marketing budget, manpower budget or ability to leverage on an existing businesses (e.g STOMP being advertised on Straits Times). They simply were able to satisfy a very real need that other sites could not. Providing Singaporeans with their badly needed daily dose of unfiltered, unmoderated news.
Although their content at times can be more sensational than factual, they provide an important medium that allows average citizens to be heard and more importantly be able to post news that the other media cannot.
Why did they become so popular? There is definitely an underlying reason for this and I believe it begins with people losing trust in mainstream media and thus seeking out other sources. There were a few alternative media editorial sites before TRS but this was the first news site and it was updated extremely regularly with stirring emotionally charged content that people WANTED to read.
And that’s why I believe they succeeded. Would love to see them exercise some more control now that they have the traction. I think they are the only chance of us ever having a non-government owned mainstream media. Whether that is a good thing or not is debatable but what is undeniably great is their allowance of an uninhibited perspective to be shown free from moderation.
#12 Nanyang Technological University
Local Site Ranking: 12 | Global Singapore Ranking: 58
NTU gets a fair bit more traffic than NUS. Anyway this isn’t a competition so I hope no one from NUS is offended. It could be for a variety of reasons such as NTU having more students or their courses requiring more usage of their website since they are a technological university after all.
#11 Groupon
Local Site Ranking: 11 | Global Singapore Ranking: 57
Groupon was previously known as the local start-up ‘Beeconomic’ before they were acquired. They are the second biggest deals website in Singapore and surprisingly not the market leader.
Intermission
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#10 Jobstreet
Local Site Ranking: 10 | Global Singapore Ranking: 55
Jobstreet is the most popular job website among Singaporeans so their tag line here actually speaks the truth!
#9 SGCarmart
Local Site Ranking: 9 | Global Singapore Ranking: 54
Recently acquired by SPH for a cool 60 million SGD, SGCarmart is Singapore’s number one car website that was started by a few buddies with a love for cars who managed to monetize their site very well.
#8 OCBC
Local Site Ranking: 8 | Global Singapore Ranking: 53
OCBC is headquartered in Singapore and considered the largest local Singapore bank by market capitalization.
#7 DEAL.com.sg
Local Site Ranking: 7 | Global Singapore Ranking: 48
Originally started out as a deals only site in 2010, deal branched out later into delivery leveraging on their co-founder’s delivery business and they now also have their own online store.
#6 StreetDirectory
Local Site Ranking: 6 | Global Singapore Ranking: 44
People around my age would remember fondly how StreetDirectory used to be heaven sent. In the past, it was the number one match you would run into when searching for directions and addresses for anything. Then google maps came along and changed everything. It was just cleaner and had far more functionality, with their latest innovation being indoor maps. Imagine that!
They still have a very comprehensive listing directory, easily the biggest in Singapore down to all the details and address of branches. But you’ve have to go through quite a bit of advertising to find what you’re looking for.
#5 StraitsTimes
Local Site Ranking: 5 | Global Singapore Ranking: 26
The StraitsTimes is the biggest newspaper in Singapore also has a big online presence. Its a pity that their content requires a subscription to access, otherwise I’d imagine their ranking would be higher.
#4 AsiaOne
Local Site Ranking: 4 | Global Singapore Ranking: 21
Owned by SPH too, AsiaOne has a huge network of portals that covers multiple niches from motoring to beauty to health. It also aggregates content from their niche portals on their main site. I guess they get more traffic than the Straits Times because all their content is free.
#3 PropertyGuru
Local Site Ranking: 3 | Global Singapore Ranking: 18
PropertyGuru has emerged as the clear winner in what used to be a very competitive digital property market in Singapore. With Singapore being a hot bed for property investment. this portal greatly helps to facilitate the industry matching agents with buyers.
Remember with the White Paper’s 6.9 population, property is going to keep getting built and prices are unlikely to drop for a long time.
#2 HardwareZone
Local Site Ranking: 2 | Global Singapore Ranking: 14
Originally starting out as a tech site, HardwareZone was acquired by SPH in 2006 for just 7.1 million. It is by far the biggest forum in Singapore and Singaporeans from all walks of life gravitate towards it for all sorts of reasons.
Their Eat-Drink-Man-Women (EDMW) forum is especially popular the latest news, entertainment and gossip that interests Singaporeans. Compared to other SPH sites, the threads here appear a bit more liberal and community managed.
#1 DBS
Local Site Ranking: 1 | Global Singapore Ranking: 11
The honour of most visited website in Singapore goes to DBS bank. They are ranked 11 out of all sites in Singapore, ranked 1 out of local sites in Singapore and ranked 3,830 in the world.
They’ve gone from strength to strength after merging with POSB with ATM machines available everywhere! I think that’s the major factor with people deciding to go with them – the sheer convenience. As for myself, I park my money in citibank but keep my day to day money in DBS accounts just because its ATMs are more accessible.
Another reason could be in the DBS dominated market, inter-bank transfers can be quite annoying to do if you don’t have a DBS account which would otherwise be instant.
I also think a lot of people place absolute faith in POSB/DBS because they were set up by the government so it maintains that unwavering image. Today, ‘Citibank Nominees’ is actually its largest shareholder.
Other Notable Sites in the Top 500
Remember how Stomp was #20 in the “Singapore only” site rankings but at #89 in the top 500? Here are some other local websites in Singapore’s top 500. This ranking includes the foreign sites.
- #112 ST Property
- #121 Today
- #150 Singapore Airlines
- #220 TR Emeritus
- #265 Singapore Expats
- #282 TheSmartLocal (Yay!)
- #354 National Library
- #419 TNP
- #437 ZaoBao
- #441 YourSingapore
- #460 LoveBonito
- #472 MediaCorp
- #481 SgCafe
- #483 OpenRice
We’ve got some catching up to do but quite happy we made it to the top 300! Note that this ranking was based on Alexa’s Top 500 websites in Singapore list in September and this list won’t be updated again by us till 2014.
Dynamic List of most Reviewed Websites
Finally, here is a list of 10 of the most reviewed websites in Singapore by our members.
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