Google Trends for Websites Sucks for Small Blogs
Recently, Google Trends added an update to the service and extended its functionality to websites with Google Trends for Websites. Google Trends gives recommendations on popular trends occurring on the web today. Now anyone with a website can find out popular trends about their website, except for the small guys.
Google Trends for Popular Websites
Google Trends for Websites is yet another traffic tracker for sites. It's in a field already dominated by Compete, Quantcast (for US traffic), and Alexa. So what could it possibly offer to users that we don't already have? This is Google we're talking about and Google has a significant amount of data about a ton of websites. For example, in our recent poll of Instant Messengers that ReadWriteWeb readers use here's how the websites IM clients Digsby, Trillian, Pidgin, Miranda IM, and Adium stack up against one another using Google Trends for Websites:
You'll receive a graph of traffic stats along with stats on the region of most visitors, related sites that visitors visited, and even other search terms if there are any. In contrast, Google Trends for keywords will show related searches, how popular the keyword is, peak time, news articles and blog posts mentioning the keyword.
The Little Guys Are Left In The Dust Again
If your blog or website doesn't receive a lot of traffic, you're better off sticking to trackers such as the Google Analytics service. Google Trends for Websites won't have any data for such sites, which is a shame considering the smaller bloggers may be the biggest users of the product. Personally, I don't see the use for Google Trends for Websites compared to other tools that are out there that offer the same information and more. Blogs already receive the information that Google is giving via their own statistics software with a lot more flexibility and options to choose from. In the end, Google Trends for Websites seems like a bit of a dud and the name should be changed to Google Trends for Popular Websites.
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The first thing I did when I heard about this new feature in Google Trends is plug my blog into the search box, unfortunately though I don't have enough traffic for Google to consider showing any data for me. Maybe so we can get a better understanding of where the cut off seems to be, I have 7,250 page views per month. Anybody have higher and still not getting data?
The only way small sites are going to appear in services like these is if they opt in to sharing their page tagging based data. Quantcast offers it and Nielsen Online's Market Intelligence is the established player in this field (in a few markets).
You never know maybe an opt-in service for small sites is on its way from Google?
To answer your question this vs the others: accuracy. Also I don't get the Google Analytics instead argument: this is BASED on Google Analytics data. There's obviously a daily cut off, my guess is 1k page views a day to be shown, but the two are related. My guess is the sites struggling to be shown are either very small, or are not using Google Analytics.
Duncan,
Accuracy does play a role, but who's to say what tool is more accurate than another since none of these tools are 100% accurate. Google may be more accurate for you where as something else might be more accurate to me.
I was suggesting Google Analytics because it offers more than what GTfW is offering. However, if you need something quick and your blog is wildly popular then GTfW might work. However, for smaller blogs or if you need more information Google Analytics offers a ton more for websites.
I'm small and I am not feeling the love.
The Masked Millionaire
Dang, look at Digsby's recent spike! Good article, I basically came to the same conclusions after playing around with google site trends for a while.
Cordiva
Yes, GoogAnalytics offers more, any analytics package does, but in terms of accuracy in open stats trackers like Alexa and Gtrends, you need to look at where Google trends is pulling the data from...and it's pulling the data from Google Analytics accounts. That makes it way, way, way more accurate than comScore, Alexa, compete and Quantcast because Google has access to real data, not just panel data. If that's not more accurate for you, I'm at a complete loss because logic dictates that if Google has access to REAL site data and the others don't, Google MUST be more accurate.
Dnucan,
If it's pulling the data from GA accounts then I don't see why smaller blogs aren't included also. There are plenty of blogs out there using GA. Right now, it's completely inaccurate for me and some of the blogs I read because it doesn't provide anything. Then again, GA doesn't catch all the data for sites that use it either. Some things still slide by.
Well, I wouldn't say that Google Trends is completely useless. It helps us reveal interesting facts about life, such as this one: Sex is more important than food.
GTfW is more useful outside the USA where it can provide localised trends for medium to large sites. Compete and Quantcast are US-only (and yes there is a big world out there) and Alexa is just rubbish.
I'm sure we'll see more features down the track but as far as 'comparative analytics' goes it isn't too bad for a freebie.
I think you missed the point. Its not for me to track my website, which i can do with Google Analytics, Its for me to find out about your website. Just like you compared digsby with other IM clients. Thats what its for so i can compare RW/W with other popular blogs.
This is going to be interesting to pay attention to. I think everything Google does first applies to the bigboys and trickles down.
We're doing 7k to 9k PVs each day and we aren't on there.
When I 1st tried it all the blogs in the affiliate marketing space, including mine which is ranked #1 in all the search engines, came up blank - not enough traffic.
HOWEVER when I logged into Google they all came up, even smaller ones. So if you haven't yet, try logging in.
Linda Buquet
Google Trends as an authoritative analytics site faces the same hurdles of Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, and others. However, adhering to the tool's name and using the service for "Trends" is a helpful outlet.
Trends identifies the location and intensity of higher level, ubiquitous conversations across the web. Great starting point for people looking for access into a community.
A tool does not always need 100% accuracy or a complete set of solutions to provide value, especially when the tool is a side project.
Google works for me just fine, showing my blog...it receives 70k pv / mo.