Google was a major source of online media traffic forwarding, but Facebook managed to overtake it. Now, however, Google regains its dominance in this area, writes Re/Code.

At some point in 2017, the search engine has become a major source of external page views, according to new data from Parse.ly's  digital analytics firm.

This was a change from the beginning of the year. In January, Facebook held nearly 40% of the external media traffic, and now only weighs 26%. Google, which launched the year with 34%, now generates 44% of this traffic.

Parse.ly data comes from about 2500 media outlets that use analysis services, including Wall Street Journal, Time Inc., Mashable, and Huffington Post.

There are a number of factors for these processes, but the following are the most crucial:

- Facebook continually updates the algorithms on its news list and changes the way it displays links, and this can have an effect on the media. Last year, for example, the social network changed its algorithm, so that the publications of friends and family rather than the media were the priority.

- The Facebook feature "Instant Articles", in which the service collected some of the media content directly, but promised to send more readers to the original sites. However, this service remained in the background.

- A lot of effort has been put on direct publishing of the Facebook video, which can have an impact on how Facebook pages are used. Any Facebook algorithm that prioritizes videos uploaded directly into the platform to text links can also influence.