Adult, betting, AI websites dominate Nigerian web traffic in July – Report

Nigerians visited pornographic, betting and artificial intelligence websites in large numbers in July, according to data from Semrush’s Traffic Analytics tool.

The data, published in Semrush’s ranking of the most visited websites in Nigeria for July 2026, showed that Google topped the list with 318.45 million visits, followed by YouTube with 46.42 million visits.

According to a report by The Punch, XVideos ranked third with 37.64 million visits, while SportyBet ranked fourth with 36.28 million visits.

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence platform, ranked fifth with 35.32 million visits, representing a 9.81 per cent increase from the previous month and a 33.43 per cent increase year-on-year.

Facebook ranked sixth with 32.85 million visits, while WhatsApp recorded 18.32 million visits to rank seventh.

LiveScore ranked eighth with 15.46 million visits, followed by another adult website, XNXX, with 15.42 million visits.

X, formerly known as Twitter, ranked 10th with 15.17 million visits.

Instagram recorded 14.32 million visits to rank 11th, while TikTok ranked 12th with 13.38 million visits.

Bet9ja ranked 13th with 11.61 million visits, while Thenkiri recorded 10.86 million visits to rank 14th.

Claude, another artificial intelligence platform, ranked 15th with 10.23 million visits.

According to Semrush, Claude recorded an 11.4 per cent month-on-month increase and a 440.86 per cent year-on-year increase in traffic from Nigeria.

Pornhub ranked 16th with 9.41 million visits, while Stake recorded 8.87 million visits to rank 17th.

1xBet ranked 18th with 8.68 million visits, while BetKing recorded 8.06 million visits to rank 19th.

Semrush said its ranking was based on data from its Traffic Analytics tool and would be updated monthly to track changes in website traffic and user interest.

The company said Google’s traffic was down 6.58 per cent month-on-month and 11.13 per cent year-on-year, while YouTube recorded declines of 4.17 per cent month-on-month and 6.25 per cent year-on-year.

Facebook recorded a 38.92 per cent year-on-year decline in traffic, while X declined by 23.16 per cent over the same period.

TikTok, however, recorded a 16.49 per cent year-on-year increase, while WhatsApp’s traffic rose by 16.85 per cent month-on-month, although it declined by 3.55 per cent year-on-year.

Semrush said 87 of the top 100 websites in Nigeria were primarily driven by direct traffic, while one was search-led and 12 leaned on social traffic.

The company said its data was derived from clickstream data and reflected online activity from more than 200 million anonymised users.

It added that its artificial intelligence algorithms analysed data from a combination of proprietary and external sources to produce the traffic estimates.

The figures represent website visits and do not indicate the number of unique Nigerian users who accessed the platforms.