June 20, 2008

Google Trends Shows Traffic Stats

Google Trends no longer displays only information about searches, now you can use it to compare the daily unique visitors for two or more sites. To see the actual numbers, you need to log in using a Google account.

It's interesting to find the sources used by Google to estimate the traffic of a web site. According to the help page, "Trends for Websites combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. (...) Additionally, Google Trends for Websites only shows results for sites that receive a significant amount of traffic, and enforces minimum thresholds for inclusion in the tool."

For example, Google Trends estimates that the number of daily visitors for Facebook.com is 30 million, 3 times bigger than one year ago. You can also find the countries where a site is popular, related sites and searches.


One interesting tidbit: you can't see traffic data for most Google sites, although there are some exceptions. "We have policy of not providing interim financial guidance, and have decided not to release Google numbers in accordance with that policy," explained a Google spokesperson. I don't think this makes sense, as Google wouldn't release its internal traffic data, but only a rough estimation.

Google's blog for webmasters warns that the data may not be very accurate. "Keep in mind that Trends for Websites is a Google Labs product and that we are experimenting with ways to improve the quality of the data. Because data is estimated and aggregated over a variety of sources, it may not match the other data sources you rely on for web traffic information."

There are other services that show web traffic stats: Compete, Quantcast (for US traffic), Alexa, but it's difficult to compare Google's data with the information provided by those services because they use different measures: daily uniques vs monthly uniques, actual numbers vs reach, worldwide visitors vs US visitors.
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20 comments:

  1. TOMHTMLJune 20, 2008 at 2:04 PM

    "Example.com" should have 10K visitors a day. Wow...

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 20, 2008 at 2:56 PM

    Don't you think that removing Google sites from this tool can be seen as "evil" ?

    Google controls a lot of information and it seems that it has no problems in filtering that information according to their interests.

    They should change their mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, while protecting Google own interests first".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kaushik PatowaryJune 20, 2008 at 11:19 PM

    yahoo.com has around 70 million daily unique visitors.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJune 21, 2008 at 2:03 AM

    It seems that they now allow Google sites. Nice :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alex ChituJune 21, 2008 at 2:15 AM

    @Anonymous:
    No, they don't. I added an update with Google's position regarding this awkward filtering.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJune 21, 2008 at 12:00 PM

    Some Google sites are still "good":

    http://trends.google.com/websites?q=feedburner.com%2C+jaiku.com%2C+grandcentral.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJune 21, 2008 at 4:37 PM

    what about blogspot blogs? no data for them? :(

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alex ChituJune 22, 2008 at 1:12 PM

    BlogSpot blogs are hosted by Google at subdomain.blogspot.com. Google Trends doesn't show data for subdomains.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJune 23, 2008 at 9:22 PM

    Great info, esp the reason why Google unveils its properties.

    But I want to know the exact source of this confirmation. Is it from nytimes?

    Thanks and best wishes,

    Du Nguyen

    ReplyDelete
  10. Alex ChituJune 23, 2008 at 11:15 PM

    @Du Nguyen:
    The source is Google Corporate Communications.

    ReplyDelete
  11. G.SuvorovJune 25, 2008 at 2:10 PM

    We already wrote some parameters to use it in SeoQuake (FireFox seo plugin), so you can see all Gtrends data in SERP or when you are visiting site. . You can get it here http://addons.seoquake.com/params/index.php?sln=en&browse=2&tag=google&res_lim=10

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousOctober 29, 2008 at 11:36 AM

    I think that most of you are simply complaining that Google didn't think about your specific needs. Singled out Google Trends is a great tool that supports a wide spectrum of marketing services. Perspectively in terms of data as well as relevance. The add-ons that Google has also conjured up make even more streamlined for the regular everday users like yourselves.

    Although I would tend to agree with the Anonymous post above in regards to Google's new motto.

    Just as well they have provided you with a great resource which allows you to put anything head to head in terms of visibilty and market demand, even as to where it is relevant.

    I did a fun video recently on how this looks so that even a beginner could see how powerful a resources Using Google Trends is using the election as an example here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-ApVSmlfc

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousMarch 4, 2009 at 12:30 PM

    Google trends is a pretty cool tool it saves you time optimizing for keywords for geographical areas that you don't need to. It helps you find seasonal data which is invaluable. It is a great niche research and keyword tool.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anti AgingMay 21, 2009 at 10:01 PM

    Google trends is a wonderful cool tool it saves you time optimizing for same keywords for geographical areas that you don't need to.
    The source is Google Corporate Communications is the never ended.google is the very good engine.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nok ImchenMay 22, 2009 at 5:40 AM

    wow! nice info...
    is ther any way to know how many times a keyword sholud contain in the content?

    ReplyDelete
  16. alishaloyJune 14, 2009 at 9:33 PM

    How are the 'categories' in Google Trends arrived at?
    I was researching on health insurance, which, in google trends belongs to two categories viz. Health & Insurance. But, the keyword Health Insurance throws very different results in both the categories.

    So, how is it that google is able to categorize Health Insurance in both the categories??? On a macro level, i believe what would answer my dilemma is: What is the methodolgy & logic of these categories on google trends???

    ReplyDelete
  17. taylormadeburnerdriverDecember 2, 2009 at 2:26 PM

    I simply love this tool I agree that Mr G controls a lot of info but they give a lot of info for free that others charge

    ReplyDelete
  18. seo servicesSeptember 8, 2010 at 9:36 PM

    This is great, and it was working great for me. However, after a few calls in an iterative script, I started getting a 503 Service Unavailable message. I'm guessing they figured out I was running a script. Any idea how to get around this?

    ReplyDelete
  19. buy lifecellJune 11, 2011 at 3:03 PM

    I'm curious why this data is not accurate. are they afraid this may be manipulated in some way do you think?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Split EndsJune 23, 2011 at 3:24 PM

    Google trends is really a useful tool for all webmasters. The only thing lacking is that it dont show trends of all the particular countries. I guess, currently it shows Trends from only two countries, US and Indai.
    Is there any plan to set up Google trends from all other countries?

    ReplyDelete

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