Goodbye Alexa : Google Trends for websites is here!

Sat, Jun 21, 2008 Tweet Vote on HN Earlier, every now and then I would go to Alexa to see my ranking to massage my ego. Now, Google has come up with a reality check - Google Trends for websites. Google announced a new layer to Google Trends in an official blogpost. Matt Cutts and Barry Schwartz also blogged about it. So... How is this different? For starters it gives way more info than other existing tools.

• Regions the traffic came from (OK, analytics and Alexa shows it but this is much better presentation and also you can check it for any website)
• Also Visited : Shows which other websites most users of one website visit. This might be useless to some, but IMHO its the most useful feature.
• Also Searched for :  Very usefull for studying your users. and choosing what words to use.

Upon login, you can see an estimate of the unique visitors. in my case the estimate looked way lower than the actual. Here is how they estimate.

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.

In my case, Alexa puts me way ahead of websites I track. I know for fact that I should be lower than these. (click images to enlarge) Google Trends does a reality check : Now, these results are more believable.