Jun 21, 2008

Google Trends for Websites - Missing Google Data

Google Trends is a great tool. I use occasionally to see what is hot and what is not on the web. Recently Google Trends released Google Trends for websites. A very interesting addition. You can now see trends for websites that you enter. This addition is not very helpful for small websites that don’t get a lot of traffic, but it can be fun to play with.

One interesting thing I noted is there is no data available for any Google websites. Searches on Google Trends for websites for sites such as google.com, blogger.com, youtube.com and blogspot.com all come back saying:

Your websites - google.com - do not have data to display.

I suppose that makes sense for google.com if it is taken from search data. Why would people search for google.com on google.com? There must be people that search for Blogger or Youtube on Google though? If you try Yahoo.com or MSN.com there is data. There is even data for sites like flickr.com and hotmail.com

I checked the “Learn more about why data may be unavailable for your websites” link to see why they don’t have all websites. Here is the answer from the FAQ:

10. Are all websites included? No. Not all websites are included in Trends for Websites. The following types of websites may not appear in the tool: * Websites with low traffic volume below our threshold * Websites that don’t wish to be indexed by Google and have indicated their preference through a robots.txt exclusion file * Websites that don’t adhere to our Quality Guidelines * Other websites for miscellaneous reasons

I guess Google’s websites must fall under “miscellaneous reasons”. They don’t care if the whole world can get an idea of the kind of traffic Yahoo and MSN get but Google.com is still suppose to be a secret. That is a little disappointing Google.

if you have a minute check Google Trends for websites out. It can be interesting.

Comments

Javed Alam

Jun 20, 2008

I noticed the same thing that is missing data for Google.com on trend.google.co when I tried to compare them with microsoft.com and yahoo.com There is data on Google from Compete.com they are ranked #1 and it shows a people count of 135,291, 588 They just took over the first spot form Yahoo as the most visited web site. I am sure that they know this and decided not to boast about it.
LGR

Jun 21, 2008

I have no doubt that they are number one now. What I find interesting about the fact that they don't show their stats is most people don't like having the whole world know how many visitor they get. Google decides to let people know everyone else's data but not their own. Seems like a little bit of a double standard to me. They should either not show anyones, or show everyones, theirs included.
Bojan

Jun 23, 2008

Google is showing trafic for one of it's sites... go to: <a href="http://trends.google.com/websites?q=www.google.rs" rel="nofollow">www.google.rs
LGR

Jun 23, 2008

Your right, but google.com and many others are still missing. I don't mind if they show traffic data, I just wish they would treat all sites the same and show theirs as well or give other people the chance to opt out.
Cosmetic Dentistry Beverly Hills

Jul 2, 2008

I too am a fan of trends. The only thing I don't like is that you need to have to estimate traffic volume based on comparisons, rather than solid numbers.
LGR

Jul 5, 2008

That is just like Google to not give out out any solid numbers. Even in AdWords when you are looking at keywords you only get vague ideas of search volume and no real numbers.