Comments on: New Hitwise Stats Show How Bad Hitwise Data Is

By: alexb

alexb — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:09:01 +0000

the same shows for us data fool, you can filter that with google trends

By: PlumbBob Market Research » PlumbBob Research Sizes Up the Mobile Phone Market: Androids, iPhones, Louis XIV, and the aesthetics of reason

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:05:30 +0000

[...] or regional seems simple — do you think you won’t make that mistake? Be careful — Michael Arrington at TechCrunch did when he was discussing Hitwise data vs. Google [...]

By: Hitwise Stats May Not Be Accurate | Kikabink News

Hitwise Stats May Not Be Accurate | Kikabink News — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:39:42 +0000

[...] Michael Arrington, “New Hitwise Stats Show How Bad Hitwise Data Is,” TechCrunch, March 2… Share and [...]

By: smushmoth

smushmoth — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:06:19 +0000

Keep in mind, in the past what techcrunch calls “Make Believe” turned out to be “spot on”

http://www.tech...lieve-internet/

http://www.tech...gs-nothing-new/

By: Anna Coulter

Anna Coulter — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:26:26 +0000

This is correct, the Hitwise data is looking at the single exact match terms.

Google Trends on the other hand looks at the “broad” range of terms within the main core term.

Hitwise is also tracking based on the number of “clicks” not impressions like Google Trends.

Did I mention that this is one of the worst researched articles I’ve had the displeasure of reading?

By: Modern Metrix Blog

Modern Metrix Blog — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:21:34 +0000

Well, you should take in consideration differences in demographic and psychographic make-up of users that turn to Google, Yahoo, and other searche engines. It’s been demonstrated by independent (offline, national representative samples) sources that Google search users are skewed towards more educated, liberal, and affluent people. Interestingly,k they are more likely to be pet owners, too. Yahoo users are more likely to be yonger and live in suburbs. MSN users are also affluent and educated, but more conservative. AOL users are older, less affluent, and more into traditional media like magazines and newspapers.

By: Andrew Naber

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:19:04 +0000

You fail to mention that while all of these are flawed only Quantcast has taken the step of providing a tracking pixel so the measured data is accurate. Even LinkedIn now uses Quantcast.

By: LEADSExplorer

LEADSExplorer — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:27:09 +0000

In February Compete had the right numbers for our site.
http://siteanal....com/?metric=uv
Maybe a one time happening.

By: Jerry Salter

Jerry Salter — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:20:46 +0000

what nobody seems to have noticed is that when you chart using trends or insight you are not charting the term you type in, but every single term/phrase that includes the term/phrase you have typed in.

for instance, use Google Trends or Google Insight to compare the term: card, with the term: credit card

are this many people really searching for card? you think?

what you are actually comparing is the volume (Trends) or the share (Insight) of every search term with the word ‘card’ in, versus every search term with the phrase ‘credit card’ in. because of the obvious overlap (i.e. card is also going to include all searches including the phrase: credit CARD, card is seen in trends to have greater volume, and share in insight).

because of the way google collects the data you simply cant make a comparison with data like Hitwise which i have found useful, at times, as it is charting the exact term you type in. In the example used here Hitwise and Trends are charting totally different data.

If you then factor in that the Hitwise data presented here is US only and the Trends data is worlwide, what you have is a blog based on a type of lunacy rarely seen these days.

Everyone else, great debate!

By: Jerry Salter

Jerry Salter — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:12:05 +0000

This is the funniest comment i ever read! Alexa doesn’t support it! thats a good one.

By: Danielle West

Danielle West — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:58:31 +0000

I think it is worth bearing in mind that Hitwise only collects data from a selection of ISPs so the data is going to be skewed slightly. A great example of this is that the hitwise data very accurately matches our findings on some of our Mens Lifestyle sites when compared to our internal analytics data whereas the womens lifestyle data for a specialist title of ours is out by quite a bit. This indicates that the market for the latter is probably not as well represented as the mens lifestyle audience. This doesn’t mean that Hitwise is crap but could be indicative of the geographic or behaviour with regards to the ISPs Hitwise is using. It would certainly be great if subscribers had more transparency on which ISPs Hitwise was using (or even what the geographic split was!).
I also would be cautious using the Google trending data as fact as well since Google isn’t necessarily the most accurate either. If anything, Google’s methodology is similar to Alexa’s but on a much larger scale. Many a time I have had to gain insight on that same niche womens lifstyle title and Google is unable to provide sufficient data. Comscore is is survey based instead of behaviour based which is dangerous as it relies on how users perceive themselves rather than on actual behaviour. As I always tell clients and colleagues, this data is useful for fact finding and helping to provide insight into the market and behaviour off-site. The most accurate data one can use and therefore rely on as fact is with an analytics tool (provided it is correctly implemented). Be careful slating these tools as you will invariably need them to build your case in future for online advertising or media spend and the data provided by these tools is far more insightful than anything available for television or outdoor display. The best thing to do is provide a footnote on the data source & methodology and be able to use the intelligence as a starting point for further investigation or testing.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:03:12 +0000

I’ve spent a good hour on the phone with Hitwise staff asking why they show my site has 50% less “share” (they do everything in terms of “share”) when Google and Quantcast (direct measured both) show my site AHEAD of competitors’ self-published (presumably inflated and optimistic) numbers.

They claim all they’re publishing is “share” based on their own sample, which, god forbid anyone confuse with reality. Yet they have no problem pimping their crap data via a constant stream of industry rankings press releases that purport to show which sites are leading.

Publicizing this faulty, conflated data makes it hard for a site to get the attention of prospects for bizdev, advertising, and M&A… EVEN WHEN YOU’RE WINNING.

How ever Hitwise is getting data, it’s crap. It makes it impossible to compare a site that gets 99% organic traffic against a site that is 50% organic, 50% PPC. For whatever reason, Hitwise’s sample favors the PPC buyer.

They deserve a good public flogging and whatever harm comes their way– they’ve cost plenty of other sites far more than they’ll likely suffer.

By: Brett Stevens

Brett Stevens — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:33:17 +0000

Your article makes sense, but there is a possible exception: if Google is gaming results through a partnership with one or another firms to list them first.

Not suggesting this is happening, but it’s not beyond comprehension, for reasons of the same business logic you mention that Hitwise should apply to their results.

The idea of gaining reliable metrics on a decentralized platform like the web seems to me impossible.

By: Martin

Martin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:17:54 +0000

Hitwise in Australia only has access to a few small ISP’s and the biggest ISP’s like Telstra BigPond don’t participate.

So, with data coming from less than possibly 25% of the market their data is garbage.

By: bluffcaller

bluffcaller — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:50:38 +0000

The guy writing this is doing his job. He says things that are obviously incorrect to generate comments to correct him. The comments make this website appear more active than it actually is, and then generates more page impressions, which ultimately leads to revenue.

By: James from FaceySpacey.com

James from FaceySpacey.com — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:07:10 +0000

Google has 80% market share, not 60%. nothing else matters besides google. They’ll be at 90% in 2 years.

By: jd

jd — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:27:56 +0000

Does anyone know which ISP’s sell Hitwise their data? I doubt the telecom or cable guys allow this. Who’s left? Only Netzero?

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:37:18 +0000

Idiot.

By: Analytics Team » Blog Archive » Hitwise traffic measurements

Analytics Team » Blog Archive » Hitwise traffic measurements — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:59:58 +0000

[...] had made it to the top of the weekly search results list beating 3 year champ, MySpace. However, Techcrunch has a very different view based on a look at Google Trends. They rank Craigslist third with [...]

By: Greg Spencer

Greg Spencer — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:42:23 +0000

Good job http://www.Clasilistados.com !! I liked your site

By: omar

omar — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:31:31 +0000

Google is only trash

By: Angeles Yang

Angeles Yang — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:28:32 +0000

Clasilistados.org grew 350% in one month

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:24:36 +0000

and if you add another term http://google.c...=all&sort=0 it gets even more interesting.

Statistics is wrong 75% of the time

By: DJ Chang

DJ Chang — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:39:40 +0000

I was an econometrician from MIT.

Mike’s right. Any collected data needs to be tempered by judgement, experience.

Don’t get lost in the details. It’s easy to let that happen.

Hitwise should make a public apology before losing global credibility.

By: Austin

Austin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:37:08 +0000

It seems to me that one explanation is the types of users each search engine attracts.

Largely, Google users are slightly more sophisticated and therefore able to type “Craigslist.com” and “Facebook.com” into their browsers without performing a search.

People who use MSN as their homepage, or Live… generally have it set that way by default. My mom, for instance.

And when she wants to go to Craigslist? She searches for Craigslist in MSN and then clicks the link.

Heck, my grandmother has Live as her homepage and searches Live for “Google” – and then Googles things.

Just a thought.