Google Trends for Websites

Google Trends introduces a new measuring tool for websites and everybody else is calling it an Alexa-killer or Compete-killer. There’s only one big problem though — something’s missing in their graphs.

Google Trends forgot to put numbers in the vertical scale. So, all you’ll see are trends and relative search popularity. Just look at these beautiful graphs.

It just tells you which sites have bigger search volume than the others in the chart. It doesn’t tell you by how much. Alexa and Compete not only rank websites, they also provide quantitative traffic volumes (although they’re just approximations).

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. The data is aggregated over millions of users, powered by computer algorithms, and doesn’t contain personally identifiable information. 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.

Another suspicious graph I discovered is this one comparing Inquirer.net and GMANews.tv. While we all know that Inquirer.net really has the higher traffic volume, their Google Trends graph are almost identical. (Update: You need to create a Google Trends account and login to see the estimated traffic figures.)

It might just be a coincidence but that’s a pretty weird trend that spans for almost a year.

And despite the fact that Google knows very well how much traffic it gets, Google Trends doesn’t seem to know anything about it. Or, they just don’t want to share their own data but willing to reveal the competitors.