Google Trends for Sites Vs Alexa
For the past few months we have been very skeptical of Alexa’s traffic trends data… and now thanks to Google and their updated Google Trends for Websites, there seems to be a bit of a justification for our skepticism.
In the below graph we compared JohnCow.com against three other blogs…
According to Google Trends results we see that we are pretty much neck and neck with entrepreneurs-journey, we are lower than JohnChow (not for long though.. bwahahahaha) and GarryConn is not even registering on the map… which is because it appears that Google has certain traffic criteria you have to meet before it will trend your site.
OK now lets compare this to what Alexa is saying…
According to Alexa the entrepreneurs-journey had a major traffic bump that Google does not show…. now this is something we are actually a little confused about because we know Yaro had some promo on his Blogging Mastermind Course (which is a fantastic course by the way) but that is on a different domain and not sure if such a spike would result on his blog. This also shows Garry Conn doing not too bad and JohnChow looks pretty close to the Google Trends data…. also, Alexa’s last little section is always whacked out.
Summary…
1. Google has more tool bars installed then Alexa (this is how the data is collected) and therefore it makes sense that their data would be more accurate (obviously we can not prove this)
2. Google’s data is up to date and Alexa’s always seems to be a week behind.
So what can you do with this info?
If you are into this kind of data, you could spend hours cross referencing your site against others… but is it worth your time?
We love Google trends for keywords because it is an excellent research tool for traffic potential and you could look at traffic potential of sites that you know are ranking well in certain markets… actually there are a few things we are going to play around and test.
So which is better?
Personally we would put our money on Google.
If you want to learn more about this you can check out what Matt Cutts (the Google Spam Czar) had to say about it, what the official Google Webmaster Blog had to say about it, what Search Engine Land had to say about it and well even Shoemoney did a little mention on it 
So, what are your thoughts on Google trends… do you see potential for good use or do you feel it is just another confusing element to an already confusing system?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
i love your arrows. what plugin do you use?
also, i’ve noticed that all these blogging sites that you mentioned are showing plunging traffic in the past month or two. just head to alexa and chose a 6 month range… you’ll see the traffic decreasing heavily. any idea why?
vishywashis last blog post..Getting The Most Out of a Press Release
Its not a plugin, we use the software http://www.jingproject.com/
As for the plunging traffic.. this is another issue with Alexa.. since they updated their algorithim a few months back everyones data is different. We know that our traffic kas gone up 30% in the last 3 months.
Google also has the data from Analytics and its search engine. Alexa just has its tool bar. I would certainly place my bets with Google.
Alexa is supposed to be making some modifications to their ranking tool and using data from other sources as well. Different people have noted that it doesn’t seem to be happening yet.
BTW, are you aware that another site has stolen your graphic? Garry Conn had a post on it. http:// www [dot] crunchnow [dot] com/
CD Rates Blogs last blog post..Fed Holds
Alexa is old energy - old school - back in the last century.
There is no comparison.Google’s been there and back and Alexa is still looking for the keys to the car.
Seth Garrisons last blog post..Alltop - The Democratic Spread Of Information
You could always use SnagIt software as well. That is a great product that is easy to use.
problem is snagt is windows only… http://www.jingproject.com/ is mac and pc
As a newbie, this is way out of my league to start looking into trends. I have yet to build my sites. Any suggestions on how to get started?
have you looked at the cowpetition posts?
Woow just checked your alexa traffic curve.. itz totally down
Last week I got huge traffic (20 times more) but alexa doesnt show that
Concerning about Google’s thing,it doesnt show anything
So I left seeing stats and comparing with others..
Blogstar Sids last blog post..Get that awesome Iphone 3G from Cow leverage
Alexa rank is pretty awesome, it truly shows traffic which I love!
mragrotimes last blog post..agrotime.wordpress.com has moved to agrotime-blog.com
I’m curious. Is it possible to be overly concerned with traffic and trends? I mean to such a point that a person can become ineffective because they do nothing but check stats all day? Just wondering…
Personally I find myself doing way too much stat checking (and both of my sites get hardly any traffic!) and I sometimes realize I’ve wasted all my dedicated writing and research time to doing the equivalent of watching paint dry on the internet. Between Google Analytics, my webhosts built in stats, checking keyword trends, etc, etc, etc, etc it’s a wonder I get anything done
B. Durants last blog post..James Fagan vs Jessica’s Law
Absolutely… we think checking everyday is too much. There is most certainly a balance but for a lot of people it is almost an addiction.
Alexa alone is completely worthless, and honestly even in tandem with google, woopra and other tools it is merely just something else to look at. When flippin a site most will want to see Google Analytics and the sort as well as a few other stats. Trends is very interesting and its to bad that Alexa has not gotten it together yet.
Big Ben Pattons last blog post..Making Money Offline
Google certainly is opening my eyes to some nice tools. Also, thank you for the IPhone offer.
I think the traffic is decreasing because less people are using the alexa toolbar. I mean anybody that knows anything is using the G toolbar nowadays and combine that with G analytics it’s golden.
G trends is just the tip of the iceburg. I have been invited into the G adplanner and the info that’s available there is an eye opener. You even get traffic info on sites that don’t offer G advertising…
I think G launched the new version of trends to promote their new demographic filters on the content network.
What do you guys think?
JDogs last blog post..How to Buy a Domain Name (without getting ripped off)
That is an excellent comment and I agree with you 100%.
Great post John, and Jdog thats a nice post! Informative!
Well, it has been nearly six months since I last posted a comment to this blog entry.
So here’s an update.
We launched our first, original site ten weeks ago and now have an overall Alexa ranking of around 1.132 million. Not too bad for a site that isn’t even yet optimized for keywords!
Our standing jump up roughly 40,000 a week.
Thanks for checking us out!
Best,
-K
http://www.for-the-troops.com/about/
Sorry Google does not work properly.
I have a page in knol and google sites and they cannot be found in Google!
Google cannot find many pages of their own.
I do not mean Google is useless, is the best but still we are not perfect in the web metrics.
Alexa can be close to some data I get intoi my own analysis. I ussually check server logs, several metrics sites, google and alexa and none of them reports the same. Sometimes google and alexa reports a new site I do in the top 50 !!!! Sometimes they do not see 100 000 users a day !!!
To me they are useful insight tools but mostly none of them brings the right results. Many reasons for that, robots, secure pages, subdomains, installed bars, anti script software, firewalls, you name it.
Even javascript on pages do not provide perfect report.
All tools useful but I will not bet my life on any.
Regards