what is a viral website 
a viral website is a website receiving an abnormally large amount of web traffic usually within a limited span of time due to word of mouth link sharing and social media sharing viral sites typically become popular through being shared on social media or forwarded to friends and family who then forward it to their own network causing traffic to the site to grow exponentially understanding viral websitesviral websites and content are highly desired for popularity fame and to generate revenue through advertising or product sales which increase as the audience of the site grows when people share the website s content with others through social media email or other online channels this results in a rapid increase in traffic and visibility the content on a viral website is usually unique interesting and shareable it usually taps into current trends or topics that are popular at the time or may loop in current events or current celebrities viral websites can take many forms such as videos images articles or memes and they may be created by individuals companies or organizations the concept of going viral viral websites have been around since the modern version of the internet emerged in the 1990s they have some things in common yet it s hard to predict what will go viral virality also has no predetermined definition based on the number of views the sites are often based on user generated content in which a virtuous cycle is created the more people that visit the site the more content is generated and the more traffic is created in return viral websites make it easy to share content with others and remove barriers to users such as onerous registration processes or paywalls they re often hosted on highly scalable platforms like wordpress which can adapt to mountainous traffic spikes the sites often feature user rankings or voting tools to bring the most popular content to the top as well viral sites are what s known as sticky they have features that keep visitors there longer behind many viral sites are algorithms that constantly look at content and move the most popular items to prominent pages and placements many viral sites have irresistible headlines as well the kind that readers simply can t help clicking on known as clickbait although virality is mostly used to describe certain kinds of content such as videos or social media posts websites such as buzzfeed upworthy reddit and even x s formerly twitter s trending posts often host viral content that is upvoted to illuminate virality videos in particular are most likely to go viral the fastest weird touching funny and strange events caught on video and uploaded to sites like youtube can generate millions of views and even end up on network television news many of them were not created with the intent of going viral and often feature embarrassing moments types of viral popularitya website can achieve different types of viral popularity each of these types are formed based on different strategic approaches in the types of content to use and people to leverage to raise the popularity below are some of the most common types of viral popularity organic virality occurs when the content on a website is so engaging unique and shareable that it spreads naturally through word of mouth social media or other online channels this occurs when people simply love content and want to share it with their networks on their own organic virality is often the most desirable type of viral popularity because it is driven by the audience s interest and not by paid promotion paid virality is when a website s content is promoted through paid channels such as social media advertising influencer marketing or other forms of paid promotion paid virality can be effective but it requires a significant investment of resources and may not be as sustainable as organic virality though paid virality creates exposure for content it is a form of advertising cost that does not happen on its own and may be short lasting consider the implications of your customers knowing you are paying in an attempt to go viral though there are major marketing implications you are also sacrificing resources from improving your goods which may alienate customers influencer virality occurs when an influential person or organization shares the content on their platform this is often seen when a celebrity or influencer is seen wearing a certain style then that style becomes extremely popular influencer virality may be a paid or non paid situation news virality occurs when a website s content is picked up by news outlets or media organizations resulting in widespread coverage and exposure news virality can be an effective way to reach a large audience quickly but may be difficult to control last trend virality occurs when a website s content taps into a current trend or popular topic this strategy results in increased visibility and interest from the audience due to the popularity around an already existing popular item trend virality can be effective but it requires a deep understanding of the audience s interests and behaviors note that trend virality may be combined with some of the other forms of virality above and virality itself may help create trends 