This is the traffic chart of labnol.org for the past 12 months according to Google Trends. The x-axis is time while the y-axis represent the count of ‘daily unique visitors.’
I compared this site traffic data from Google Trends with the actual statistics recorded by Google Analytics and here’s the result.
The red line represents Google Analytics data while the blue colored line is from the original Google Trends chart.
As you may have noticed already, the data from Google Analytics and Google Trends not only follow a similar pattern, they even match in terms of absolute numbers with only minor variations. Awesome!
If you’re curious to do a similar comparison for your own website, follow these steps:
Step 1. Go to Google Analytics -> Traffic Sources and select the date range from May 1, 2007 until July 16, 2008.
Step 2. Now select the "Graph by Week" option in Google Analytics because Google Trends also displays weekly data in their charts.
Step 3: Export this Google Analytics data as CSV in Excel and divide all the numbers by 7 because we need average data per day while analytics gave us data for the whole week.
Step 4. Plot a line chart using Google Analytics data and resize the chart to give it the same dimensions as Google Trends chart. When the two have similar sizes, place the Analytics chart over the Google Trends chart as in the screenshot. Done.
Why would anyone need Alexa, Quantcast or Compete charts to compare traffic data when Google Trends can offer such accurate results.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/site-traffic-charts-google-trends-accuracy/4152/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
I reckon those results in Trends are from actual data obtained from Google analytics. Since almost everybody uses analytics Google has access to every site’s traffic stats which is made available to everybody else through Trends.
Also checkout adwords keyword tool. Now with actual figures. Who needs other keyword tools?
Written by Kaushik on 08.06.08
Very nice and interesting article
Thank you..
Written by ebta on 08.06.08
“Google Trends provides insights into broad search patterns. Please keep in mind that several approximations are used when computing these results. All traffic statistics are estimates.”
This clears the confusion many people have over analytics data from Google Analytics and Google Trends. Due to privacy concerns, they approximate your data that are displayed on trends and hence its not accurate in my opinion as compared to Google Analytics.
Just my view though! The graph also compares to your sites most related websites and builds the graph and changes can be anticipated.
Cheers,
Vinay
Written by Vinay on 08.06.08
Very nice article. Looks like labnol.org has been very successful in the past year.
What do you believe is the reason that Google Trends and Google Analytics differ for the last month of data? It shows a sharp difference for some reason.
Written by Indian on 08.06.08
That is a bit interesting.
However, I observed that majority of your traffic is from India, instead of USA, UK and other countries. In your previous articles regarding your earning details, you mentioned that majority of your traffic was from USA and UK,
:)
Written by Shobhit on 08.06.08
hi,
if i’m not wrong..
the final part graph are opposite to each other..
google analytics says downwards where as the trends shows upwards!!!!
pls enlighten me if i’m wrong..
thx..
Written by shiva on 08.06.08
Shiva - Right but since Google Trends shows data for only the first two weeks of July 2008, I will probably revisit this once they have data for subsequent months.
Shobhit - Great observation. There are two reasons for that. Once my old blogger site continues to draw traffic but is not part of this comparison.
Second, the Google Trends data is not very accurate in this “geography” parameter. For instance, according to Google Analytics, the top visitors are from Countries US, India, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany .. in the same order.
Written by Amit Agarwal on 08.07.08
Amit I have made some observations on these interesting facts and Google’s privacy policy on my blog !!!
Written by Rajesh on 08.07.08
The Dragon breathed fire on your stats in March, right? I think the contest was around that time.
Keep up the great job.
- Rakesh
Written by Rakesh on 08.09.08
I did the exact same comparison for a fairly large b2c site (a household name in the USA) and the resulting graphs were as different as it is possible to be. Google’s quantities also were off by 2/3. The site in question does not use Google Analytics. My guess is that when Google Trends for Web Sites has Google Analytics data available, it uses that, and is fairly accurate. When it does not have Google Analytics information available it probably uses a combination of Toolbar and Search clicks, and is not accurate at all, not even a little bit.
In your Google Analytics, are you one of the sites that gave Google permission to share your data in their benchmarking program.
Written by Chris G on 08.16.08