Blue, then red, then cyan
What colors do most websites use?
Blue. It is the main color of 49% of the 1,000 most-linked websites, ahead of red (16%) and cyan (5.6%), and 67% have a blue family somewhere on their home page. Around the main color the web is white, black and grey. Recolor (recolor.page), a website color changer, read the CSS of each home page on October 8, 2026 and took as its main color the hue family its engine ranks first.
Last updated
| Hue | Main color of | A family on |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | 49% | 67% |
| Red | 16% | 31% |
| Cyan | 5.6% | 18% |
| Green | 4.5% | 14% |
| Orange | 4.1% | 11% |
| Indigo | 4.1% | 6.9% |
| No main color | 3.2% | black, white and grey only |
Blue first, by a wide margin
A site's main color is the hue family that covers the most of its page, weighed with how colorful it is, so a near-black text color does not outrank the brand. Blue is that family on 49% of the sites, more than every other hue together. Red follows with 16%, then cyan with 5.6% and green with 4.5%; no other hue reaches that. 3.2% of the sites have no main color at all: black, white and grey only.
The main colors are saturated mid-tones: the median one has an OKLCH lightness of 0.55 and a chroma of 0.177. The 12 hue names are those of Tailwind CSS's palette, each bucket centered on its 500 shade.
Share of sites. The hue buckets are named after the Tailwind CSS v4 shades they are centered on.
The numbers
| Main color | Sites | Share | Hue range (OKLCH degrees) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | 164 | 16% | 9.8 to 36.5 |
| Orange | 41 | 4.1% | 36.5 to 66.8 |
| Yellow | 31 | 3.1% | 66.8 to 108.4 |
| Lime | 22 | 2.2% | 108.4 to 140.2 |
| Green | 45 | 4.5% | 140.2 to 166.0 |
| Teal | 22 | 2.2% | 166.0 to 198.9 |
| Cyan | 56 | 5.6% | 198.9 to 237.5 |
| Blue | 490 | 49% | 237.5 to 268.5 |
| Indigo | 41 | 4.1% | 268.5 to 284.9 |
| Violet | 33 | 3.3% | 284.9 to 307.4 |
| Magenta | 13 | 1.3% | 307.4 to 338.2 |
| Pink | 10 | 1% | 338.2 to 9.8 |
| No main color | 32 | 3.2% | black, white and grey only |
The colors around the main one
Most sites have more than one hue. Counting every family that holds at least 5% of a site's color, blue is on 67% of the sites, red on 31%, yellow on 21% and cyan on 18%. The median site has 3 hue families in all, which is about what a website palette needs: one main color and an accent or two.
What the biggest sites use
The most-linked sites lean even further to blue. Of the 100 highest-ranked sites that loaded, 62 have a blue main color. The ten at the top, in Majestic's order, with the hue of their main color: google.com violet, youtube.com red, linkedin.com blue, apple.com blue, microsoft.com blue, github.com blue, wikipedia.org blue, play.google.com blue, apps.apple.com blue, wordpress.org blue. Google's home page, as its server sends it with scripts off, colors its links a violet, which makes violet its main color; YouTube's is its red. The study's table lists all 100 with their hex codes, each with a link that opens the site in Recolor.
Mostly white, black and grey
The colors that cover the most are not colors at all. Among each site's 5 heaviest
colors, white (#ffffff) is on 86% of the sites and black (#000000) on
42%. Greys carry 73% of the color on the median page, and
92% of the home pages are light.
| Color | Nearest CSS name | Sites |
|---|---|---|
#ffffff | White | 86% |
#000000 | Black | 42% |
#333333 | Dark Slate Grey | 6.8% |
#222222 | Midnight Blue | 4% |
#e5e7eb | Lavender | 3.9% |
#666666 | Dim Grey | 3.3% |
#eeeeee | Linen | 3.2% |
#f0f0f0 | White Smoke | 2.9% |
#cccccc | Light Grey | 2.3% |
#999999 | Dark Grey | 2.1% |
How the main color was found
Recolor's engine read every color in each home page's CSS with the page's scripts off, merged values closer than 0.04 in OKLab, weighed each by the elements and the area it covers, and grouped hues within 25 degrees into families, as it does before it repaints a page; Strength, neutral tint and overrides explains the ranking. Images and logos are not read. The study has the full results and the data, and the methodology every rule.
Common questions
Is blue the most popular color on websites?
Yes. Blue is the main color of 49% of the 1,000 most-linked sites, and 67% have a blue family somewhere on the page.
Is red the second most common main color?
Yes. Red is the main color of 16% of the sites, ahead of cyan with 5.6%.
Do most websites have a white background?
Yes. 92% of the home pages are light, and white is among the 5 heaviest colors of 86% of the sites.
Is black a common website color?
Yes. Black (#000000) is among the 5 heaviest colors of 42% of the sites, second only to white at 86%.
Do the colors of photos and logos count?
No. Only the colors in a page's CSS count; images, video and canvas keep their colors and are not read.
Can I find the main color of my own site?
Yes. Load the site into Recolor and press Use site colours in the Mapping panel: swatch 1 is the family the engine ranks first, the same main color the study took.
Sources
- The colors of the web 2026, Recolor recolor.page
- Majestic Million, Majestic majestic.com
- Colors, Tailwind CSS tailwindcss.com