This Tool Lets You Search the Internet by Font

Before you read the first word of a webpage, you may have already made a judgment based on its font. A classic font like Helvetica conveys professionalism, whereas an article written in Papyrus or Comic Sans doesn't help boost its credibility. To get a closer look at how fonts are being used on the Internet, users can search FontReach for data on the top million websites. 

To use the tool, simply type the name of a font into the search bar and FontReach will generate data based on its popularity. For instance, Times Roman can be found on 95 of the top one million websites, and Times New Roman is featured in 37,963. Clicking on a font will show you the top websites that use it (Arial, the number one font, is used by Google, Facebook, and Twitter).

Instead of searching by individual fonts, you can also view their top fonts list for the ultimate ranking. Arial beats out the number two Verdana more than twice over with appearances on 616,190 of the top million sites. The list includes all of the usual suspects, as well as plenty of names you may not recognize, like Lobster, Slick, and Font Awesome.

FontReach was developed by Jesse Chase and Jason Chen. They got the idea while deciding on a new typeface for their website Digital Ocean; they wanted something that was versatile without being too overexposed. Because there wasn't a tool that allowed them to search hard data on web fonts, they went ahead and created their own.

Besides being a valuable tool for web designers, the site can also be used as a source of endless entertainment for the font nerds among us.