Artificial intelligence, betting and adult-content platforms featured prominently among the websites with the highest traffic from Nigeria in July, according to a new ranking by digital intelligence firm Semrush.

The ranking showed Google maintaining a commanding lead, with an estimated 318.45 million visits from Nigeria during the month, while YouTube followed with 46.42 million visits. Semrush said its ranking is based on its Traffic Analytics and is updated monthly to track changes in web traffic.

XVideos, an adult-content platform, ranked third with 37.64 million visits, followed by betting platform SportyBet with 36.28 million.

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence platform, came fifth with 35.32 million visits, putting it ahead of Facebook, WhatsApp and other major social media platforms.

ChatGPT‘s traffic from Nigeria increased by 9.81 per cent from the previous month and 33.43 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to the Semrush figures.

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

Sports platform LiveScore was eighth with 15.46 million visits, while another adult-content website, XNXX, ranked ninth with 15.42 million visits.

X, formerly Twitter, completed the top 10 with 15.17 million visits.

Instagram recorded 14.32 million visits to rank 11th, while TikTok followed with 13.38 million. Betting platform Bet9ja occupied the 13th position with 11.61 million visits.

Thenkiri recorded 10.86 million visits, while Claude, another artificial intelligence platform developed by Anthropic, ranked 15th with 10.23 million visits.

Claude recorded one of the strongest growth rates among the platforms featured in the ranking. Its Nigerian traffic rose by 11.4 per cent month-on-month and 440.86 per cent year-on-year.

Pornhub ranked 16th with 9.41 million visits, followed by betting platform Stake with 8.87 million. 1xBet recorded 8.68 million visits to rank 18th, while BetKing was 19th with 8.06 million.

The ranking places three distinct categories; artificial intelligence, online betting and adult content prominently among the platforms attracting substantial Nigerian web traffic, alongside established search, video, social media and messaging services.

Semrush’s wider data showed that traffic to some of the biggest platforms declined during the period. Google’s traffic fell by 6.58 per cent month-on-month and 11.13 per cent year-on-year, while YouTube recorded declines of 4.17 per cent and 6.25 per cent respectively.

Facebook experienced a 38.92 per cent year-on-year decline, while X recorded a 23.16 per cent fall over the same period.

TikTok, however, recorded a 16.49 per cent year-on-year increase. WhatsApp also grew by 16.85 per cent month-on-month, although its traffic was down 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 mainly search-led and 12 relied on social traffic.

The company said its estimates were derived from clickstream data reflecting online activity from more than 200 million anonymised users, with artificial intelligence algorithms used to analyse data from proprietary and external sources.

The figures come against the backdrop of expanding internet use in Nigeria. DataReportal estimated that Nigeria had 109 million internet users at the end of 2025, representing an internet penetration rate of 45.5 per cent. The country also had 165 million cellular mobile connections at the time.

The figures also show that website traffic should not be interpreted as the number of individual Nigerians using a platform. Semrush’s figures measure visits, meaning one person can account for multiple visits to the same website.

The July ranking therefore provides an indication of the volume and direction of online activity rather than a direct measure of the number of unique users or their reasons for visiting the platforms.

With AI tools gaining traffic while betting platforms and adult-content websites continue to attract millions of visits, the figures offer a snapshot of the diverse and rapidly changing nature of Nigeria’s digital audience.