Before Google Trends for Websites, there were three main ways to calculate web traffic. The first is based on users downloading and installing software on their computers that tracks surfing habits. Internet wide traffic data is then determined based on what was gathered from these users. One example of this type of traffic calculation is the Alexa Toolbar. They rank sites based on how many users visit it through their toolbar in Internet Explorer and various sidebars in Mozilla and Netscape. Unfortunately, there is some controversy about how accurate their sample data is compared to the overall Internet population, not to mention possible sample biases.
Another service similar to Alexa is Compete, but they only track traffic in the U.S. They use data from ISPs, opt-in panels, application providers, and its toolbar. The main problem with these sites is that they are self-selecting services, meaning users choose to put them on their computers. There may be differences (in this case, what sites they visit) between people who choose to use software like this and those that don't. Comscore has tried to mitigate this problem, but it tends to work better for larger, more established sites. They are also rather expensive.
The second way to calculate site usage is by tracking traffic directly from websites. Quantcast is a website that asks other websites to insert specific HTML code into the web pages they want included in Quantcast's statistics. These statistics include information about the demographics, such as age, sex, and average income. They also utilize information gathered from user surveys.
The third traffic monitoring technique uses records from ISPs. Hitwise is probably the best known company that makes use of this method. They specialize in data reports on specific services, or verticals (travel, medical, auto repair, etc.), that help measure market share on the Internet. However, all of these services suffer from a lack of users to get an accurate account of actual Internet usage. Can Google Trends for Websites solve this problem? Keep reading to find out.
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