Google has just introduced Google Trends For Websites, a new tool that lets users take a peek at the traffic data from sites around the web. The new feature pits Google against a number of well-established players in the traffic data space, including Compete, Comscore, Alexa, and a host of others.
All these services fall prey to one core problem – they don’t have a way to directly measure the traffic on the websites that they’re monitoring (some sites let you embed code to get an accurate reading, but this only works for sites that have opted in). As a result, traffic data tends be highly inaccurate.
Google, and Google alone, has the power to offer truly accurate traffic information across a large portion of the web. For years the company has offered Google Analytics, a very popular tool that allows sites to monitor their own traffic. Earlier this year Google announced that sites could share their traffic data in an aggregated, anonymous fashion, but stopped short of letting them publish it to everyone.
And with the new Google Trends for Websites, Google has stopped short again. Instead of turning to their goldmine of Analytics data, Trends:
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
.
Great, so we’ve got one more unverified, possibly totally inaccurate source of traffic information. Google may be able to leverage its vast database of search data to more accurately measure traffic than the other services, which may well have Alexa et al. shaking in their boots. But until sites have the opportunity to share their Analytics data, any ranking should be met with extreme skepticism.
There is one light at the end of the tunnel: Mozilla has been working on a stealth project that will introduce an opt-in traffic monitor to its Firefox web-browser. With an estimated 18% of the web browser market, the data would be very significant even if only a small fraction of Firefox users choose to participate.
hmmm….
http://trends.g...=all&sort=0
There goes comscore and alexa. Google is like a burned out Sun about to supernova, engulfing planets as it goes along.
One day it will run out of hydrogen.
There isnt any question of google using analytics data. That would really piss off a lot of users.
I think google trends can be better than alexa, compete etc. since google search is a majority traffic source for most websites.
Hopefully, they’ll start to provide analytics for widgets. I know comscore has widget support. Are there any others?
But, again it would reflect only a limited sample in terms of variety.
Tech related websites would do comparatively better in FX trends than say womens gossip websites.
And ofcourse niche websites like say operawatch.com would do horribly in FX trends.
I think Google Trends has the potential to be the most accurate source.
Btw, I just noticed this :
Exactly what does that mean? Can you please explain, since you seem to suggest Analytics data isnt being used.
the mood must be somber at compete, etc.
Thanks Jason.
YES ALL OF THE “Compete”, “Comscore”, Alexa” DOES NOT PROVIDE THE ACTUAL TRAFFIC DATA.
How can you get the REAL traffic of a website with out tracking them
you have to either get from
1. Logs
2. Cookies ( which are called bacon’s ) similar to google analytics.
I am glad google is giving this data out.
Nice TOPIC. Have been waiting for a while..
Cheers, Nag
I’m not sure what “aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data actually means. Earlier this year they allowed people to opt-in to this:
“Enable benchmarking within Google Analytics by sharing your website data in an anonymous form. Google will remove all identifiable information about your website, combine the data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries and report aggregate trends in the benchmarking service. Google will also use this data in anonymous form to improve our products and services.”
How many people have iGoogle or google as their HP? every redirect is collected to Data.
Big Big question on privacy here…
Personally, I wouldn’t want them to use my analytics data. If I can’t opt out, I won’t use google analytics anymore. I’ll have to switch to another vendor. If I could find a way to make it look to the world like my traffic is zero that is what I would choose. In the “follow the leader” of web business it is to my advantage not to look like the leader. Now, if I’m going to beg for investment or can’t drive revenue based on CPA or CPC that’s different but even then I can use my private metrics to justify whatever I need.
Looks like data from google websites is filtered from the results. No google.com, orkut.com etc
It would be great, from a webmaster perspective, to allow Google to share detailed analytics data — assuming that I have control over what is shared?
Why would it be great?
It gives you independently verifiable traffic data that sponsors can trust — and that’s fantastic.
This would be a big boon to smaller destinations who still have valuable sponsorships to offer.
100% correct independently verifiable traffic data that sponsors (advertisers) can trust —means advertising revenue for smaller destination web sites. This advertising could possibly be sold on a “cost per view” CPM eyeball basis.
Need to make it easy for advertisers to automatically place ads and for web sites to get paid. Google has a HUGE advantage in this area with exisitng billing realtionships (credit cards on file*) with thousands of advertisers.
* For you direct marketers-think of this as B2B on line advertising “ship til forbid”
try: http://www.google.com
“As a result, traffic data tends be highly inaccurate”
Oh I see,
If Arrington show some stats about fakebook leading the internets then that is true word, but if Google has their own stats then nobody can trust stats anymore.
Talk about an agenda…
@10 why is collecting anonymous aggregate statistics on where millions of users go from their google home page a “Big Big question on privacy”? It’s not like it would be possible to identify a particular user’s surfing habits as a result.
I’m not saying that there aren’t privacy concerns here, particularly around Jason’s apparently preferred data collection method: sucking Google Analytics data out of GA user accounts and making it public without permission. If that happens (it won’t), expect 95% of GA users to jump ship.
But privacy concerns related to knowing that 1,205,420 people visited TC yesterday as opposed to 1,205,421 people? Give me a break.
My previous comment was actually directed at Danny, not Korak. Apologies.
Hi Jason,
I might be partial to Google (having said that, I also like Firefox), but why Mozilla would be more accurate than Google, Alexa & else?
Besides, even if I’m not a statistician, I always thought that more than the # of opt-in users, the most important thing is to ensure that your sample is representative of the studied population.
Thus, even if you would be able to have all FF users, they obviously represent 18% of the total & are probably more representative of geek population.
You’d expect google to do it better. Judging how they compare to the rest. it is really disappointing.
If they are going to show the numbers in the graph they mine as well give a daily average and a monthly number. I like how compete gives a monthly number even if its not accurate.
Sounds like what we need is for Verizon & Comcast to report this data (anonymously, of course). With their duopoly, virtually every user in a given city has to use one or the other, so you’d have true numbers.
Privacy zealots may flame on this, of course, but reality is that having the internet advertising business built on honest, true data instead of seriously bogus sampling is really to the benefit of most TechCrunch readers — innovative sites and users who don’t want to keep seeing more me-toos getting all the money.
Like I imagine it does for most people, the privacy implications of any sort of data tracking do trouble me, but I’ve also been around the block enough to know that “abstinence” isn’t an effective response. Reality is that modern technology does enable this sort of tracking in A LOT of different ways. Crying when they are made public just causes people to keep them secret, not to stop doing it. I’d much rather understand how and where I’m being watched than stick my head and the sand and assume that it isn’t happening.
Looks like the traffic from some of the Google clan is being collected. It’ll be interesting to see which Google properties continue to share the love.
http://img.skit...g6bkupyemm6.png
http://trends.g...=all&sort=0
Anyone notice how google doesn’t display traffic data for it’s own site? Interesting…
Without giving away numbers, and with Google having *zero* access to our internal statistics, I can say their graphing is accurate within about 5%. For our site, at least.
I’m with Pallab and Erwood. Mozilla may be able to put together a good competitor, but demographically it would be very skewed. Great for tech, bad for fashion, etc.
Amazing tool.
Google Analytics is actually pretty inaccurate for mapping click-paths. Our company has a terrible time getting the GA Goal Seeker due to the fact that the GA cookie usually expires before our customers reach a goal.
GA will be comparable to Quantcast for basic PV/Unique monitoring, but that’ll be about it.
I’ve never even been able to figure out where any of the public data is on comScore. I frankly don’t understand that service.
I take “aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data” to mean that they will only include data from Google Analytics data users that have explicitly opted-in. You shouldn’t need to opt-out if you don’t want to be included.
The aggregated part probably just means it’s been combined (aggregated) with a number of different sources.
This is exciting stuff
You’re comparing apples and oranges here.
Google Trends triangulates actual value by combining traffic, search, and discussion (blogs and news) data which to me seems far more important than a often inaccurate hit count. Further, with redistribution of content through feeds and embeds, the importance of hits to a given property is arguably diminishing. Google would be selling itself short to simply aggregate Analytics data.
So while they both — Comscore, Alexa, hitwise, et al. vs Google Trends — may present pretty graphs that resemble one another, Google Trends reports total value and impact and the others simply keep score.
Looks like data from google websites
You can’t use it to check Google.com, though.
yeah, it weird, means you can see how much control they have on data
@ aaronontheweb
Comscore only sells their data to highend users. I think the minimum cost for one of their packages is like $9k or $10k
I wonder how much of this data is from the Google Toolbar?
I don’t seem to be getting actual traffic numbers as shown in the picture in this post.
@Confused
You need to log in apparently.
Ah ok thanks, logged in and I see them now.
Google against a number of well-established players in the traffic data space, including Compete, Comscore, Alexa, and a host of others.
There is no doubt that Google will eat its competitors in this market over the long run. Why? Google have a proper R&D division and their task is to scour the literatures to find something interesting (algorithms, etc…) to implement or perhaps used those ideas to invent new ones. Its competitors are doing neither of those.
What does this mean? Well, as far as I can see the services of Compete, Comscore and Alexa are very primitive in its analytic capabilities. I mean that they still using most the uni-variate techniques and descriptive statistics that one learns at high school, which isn’t cutting edge is it? There are tons of multivariate techniques available in the literatures today that I haven’t seen those services adopted yet. These techniques give more depth into the world of analytics and this is where Google comes in nicely, since they got vision. Meaning that they have the ability to see things that others don’t see.
Here is a fact. In the world of data analytics today, the only thing that matters is sophistication of a tool’s analytical capability (ie, how advanced your algorithms are), apart from that , a long established market share counts to nothing.
Michael,
Can you share how their stats on TC compare with actual stats on TC properties? They’re showing techcrunch.com at just about 140k daily visitors…
http://trends.g...es?q=google.com
Once again, Google is unable to provide data for its own website, just like Alexa and others. Because everyone Google collects data from would be using Google service, thus Google would be most popular site on the Internet according to Google Trends with 100% of internet users visiting their site (if they were to provide data for google.com)
There is one major advantage Google would have on these services and that is the global Dataset.
Today only Alexa attempts to offer global results – Google with their almost global spread could give very accurate results in markets such as Europe which has long waited for a cross country measurement system.
This is a very important service (potentially speaking).
Wow! This looks very promising… – Vlad
There is some thing very interesting about it.
Try to search for Google.com or youtube.com , and guess what?
Your websites – google.com – do not have data to display.
It looks Google is hiding data for its own properties, the no EVIL company!
Hi,
This Google “treads’ site has been up for months.
Peace!
Dan
Google hides its own (youtube.com, blogger.com, blogspot.com) data if you want it to compare them to wordpress.com, vimeo.com, veoh.com. I do not know if they are afraid of comeptition.
If you (website owner) also want to hide your data from others they suggest to remove your site from google index not just analytics code. Which is really sucks
Google, ether display data for all websites (youtube, blogger) , or give option to site owners hide their sites!!!!
http://www.goog...dex.html#owners
…
17. I don’t want my website listed. Is there a way to remove it from Trends for Websites?
No, the option to remove your website isn’t available at this time… In the meantime, please note that your content won’t appear on Trends for Websites if – using methods such as the Robots Exclusion Protocol – you’ve already prevented your content from appearing in Google’s search results.
when i heard this news that google launches its new trends for website, i was so happy. but when i checked mine site, only blogsome will be the result. huhu
i used alexa & compete on a daily basis and from what i’ve seen the Google Trends falls way short..
Most users forget/are unaware that google toolbar already chirps back user’s site viewing history to google.
So your users are potentially (and unknowingly) reporting access information about your site to Google even if you’ve made an attempt to block Google crawling/stats directly.
And given that they hide data about their OWN sites? Awful. Just awful.
I would think the next step by Google in this area is to encourage / push / force ISPs around the world to supply HTTP traffic data to Google in order to gather more accurate data. Of course, Google will be able to find a way of providing incentives to these ISPs for cooperation.
Google is showing trafic for one of it’s sites… go to: http://www.google.rs
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