66.7% of popular websites that link to X still point only to twitter.com addresses, more than two years after the platform renamed itself and moved to x.com. For every website that has fully switched, more than two still use the old address.
Analysis of 384,602 homepages of the 500,000 most visited websites · the public HTTP Archive crawl, September 2026
Key Findings
- 1.66.7% of homepages that link to X use only twitter.com addresses, 56,044 of 84,016.
- 2.30.1% of homepages that link to X have switched fully to x.com, and 3.2% carry both addresses.
- 3.15.3% of the 500,000 most visited websites have a twitter.com link on their homepage, against 7.3% with an x.com link.
- 4.58% of the 10,000 most visited websites that link to X still use only twitter.com, against 67.5% of websites ranked 100k to 500k.
- 5.21.8% of the 500,000 most visited websites link to X in some form from their homepage.
Summary
Scroll to the footer of a company website and there is usually a row of social icons: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and a small bird or an X. Hover over the X, and on most websites the link still reads twitter.com. The icon may have been updated; the address behind it has not.
Twitter renamed itself X and moved to the x.com address more than two years ago. Old twitter.com links still work because they redirect to x.com, so nothing breaks when a website leaves them alone. That makes the share of websites that have updated their links a useful measure of how actively businesses maintain their sites and their presence on the platform.
Most have not. 66.7% of homepages that link to X still use only twitter.com addresses, 30.1% have switched fully to x.com, and 3.2% use both. For every website that has switched, more than two still point to the old address. The biggest websites have updated most, but even among the 10,000 most visited, 58% of those linking to X still use only twitter.com.
What we measured
We used the public HTTP Archive crawl of September 2026 and took the homepages of the websites ranked among the 500,000 most visited, 384,602 in all, using Google's Chrome UX Report, which ranks websites by real Chrome traffic. On each homepage we looked for links to twitter.com, including its www and mobile addresses, and links to x.com.
We then sorted every homepage into four groups: linking only to twitter.com, only to x.com, to both, or to neither. 84,016 homepages link to X in some form. We split the results into three popularity groups: the top 10,000, ranks 10k to 100k, and ranks 100k to 500k.
Twitter-only links outnumber x.com-only links two to one
Of the 84,016 homepages that link to X, 56,044 use only twitter.com, 25,265 use only x.com and 2,707 use both. So for every website that has fully switched to x.com, more than two still point to the old address. Across all 384,602 homepages, 15.3% contain a twitter.com link and 7.3% an x.com link.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 384,602 homepages of the 500,000 most visited websites · the public HTTP Archive crawl, September 2026
| Link type | Homepages | Share of homepages linking to X |
|---|---|---|
| twitter.com only | 56,044 | 66.7% |
| x.com only | 25,265 | 30.1% |
| Both | 2,707 | 3.2% |
The redirect removes any pressure to update. Social links usually sit in a footer or header template that nobody touches after launch, so a website built before the rename keeps its twitter.com link until someone redesigns it or goes looking.
The biggest websites have updated most
Among the 10,000 most visited websites, 58% of those linking to X still use only twitter.com. The share rises to 65% for websites ranked 10k to 100k and 67.5% for websites ranked 100k to 500k. Larger websites tend to be redesigned and maintained more often, so old links get replaced sooner.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 384,602 homepages of the 500,000 most visited websites · the public HTTP Archive crawl, September 2026
| Popularity | Homepages | Link to X | twitter.com link | x.com link | Only twitter.com, of those linking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 500,000 | 384,602 | 84,016 | 15.3% | 7.3% | 66.7% |
| Top 10,000 | 7,498 | 2,485 | 20.2% | 13.9% | 58% |
| 10k to 100k | 67,281 | 17,431 | 17.7% | 9.1% | 65% |
| 100k to 500k | 309,823 | 64,100 | 14.6% | 6.7% | 67.5% |
Bigger websites also link to X more often: 20.2% of homepages in the top 10,000 carry a twitter.com link, against 14.6% for websites ranked 100k to 500k.
Fewer websites carry X at all
Outdated links are one part of a wider pullback from X on websites. 21.8% of homepages among the 500,000 most visited websites still link to X in some form, but across the full crawl, the X ads pixel fell 38% between October 2024 and September 2026, and embedded Twitter widgets, the timelines and post embeds that show X content on a page, fell 44.6%. Over the same period the TikTok and Reddit pixels grew.
What this means for businesses
Check your own site. Search your footer, header, contact page and author bios for twitter.com and replace each link with your x.com address, or remove it if you no longer post on X. An old address still works, but it signals a site nobody has looked at in years, and every link to a profile you have abandoned sends visitors somewhere that does not represent you.
Use the same pass to review every social link and embed: old Twitter widgets, retired share buttons and pixels for platforms you no longer advertise on. Each one is a small script or link that costs speed or credibility and adds nothing.
Ongoing website management from Suff Digital keeps links, embeds and tracking scripts current so small details like these do not pile up.
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<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/twitter-com-vs-x-com-links">66.7% of Websites That Link to X Still Use twitter.com Instead of x.com - Suff Digital</a></p>
Cite this study
Suff Digital. (2026). 66.7% of Websites That Link to X Still Use twitter.com Instead of x.com. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/twitter-com-vs-x-com-links
66.7% of Websites That Link to X Still Use twitter.com Instead of x.com - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/twitter-com-vs-x-com-links
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