Seomoz: An analysis of tool resources for predicting the traffic of competitor websites

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Today we are going to share with you several tools and resources to gain insight into competitor website traffic data. We have looked at these software to subdivide their strengths and weaknesses, such as the validity and usefulness of the data. Finally you can add some good competitor web analytics tools and resources to your personal private SEO tool.

The failure and inadequacy of the experiment

At first I wanted to compare the data of these trials with my analysis data and find out which one provided the most accurate information. I compared the real data from 25 monthly visitors from ~1000 to 48000000 of the monthly visitors to the data from other tools to predict and analyze, trying to find more trustworthy data.

The initial idea was to get some data from these platforms such as average monthly visitors, annual visitors, visitors from different places, and so on. Unfortunately, there are very few tools that can provide the data I originally wanted, so we can't compare the data of each tool horizontally because there is not enough data, but we can still get some data and idea from the following tools to compete with the website traffic.

Toolkit

It is worth noting that the data on these sites indicate that they can provide better data, I can't prove this precision because I can't go into the internal knowledge of the data (and not because of the data from the 25 sites), and all the comments are based on these free tools.

Alexa

Advantages：

Alexa can compare the traffic of different websites and detect their traffic trend, it can compare 5 websites at once. Alexa can monitor the number of sites is still very large, all 25 of the test site data included.

Deficiencies:

For some small sites is not very practical. As you can see on the site outside of top100000 you don't get any data in the flow chart (that is, Alexa thinks your site doesn't have access to less than 10,000 a month, you may not be able to collect some data.) )

Accuracy is a serious problem, and in general it seems to be the common fault of these tools.

The data in the report has little to do with the expected traffic.

　　

Accuracy：

We'd like to remain anonymous on the issue of accuracy, but we still have to say that one of the sites we know to get 10-20000 visitors a month is 5 times times more than the Alexa rankings we know another site gets 75,000 visitors a month. And more than one such event occurred.

I will seriously consider the credibility of this tool. It's not bad at predicting the trend of a single website but its charts are hard to use. The information on the rate of failure appears to be quite accurate but the trend of the rate of failure appears to be less accurate (for example, the ups and downs appear to be inconsistent with the peaks and valleys of the analysis data).

How to better use Alexa

This tool is very interesting to compare similar sites in the industry. In my experience I would recommend this tool, this particular data I would say you must be cautious about making decisions or estimating traffic data on your site. For a website The data is a large concept although the data is not particularly accurate.

The most accurate data appears to be that the user is distributed by country and region (the order is fairly accurate as a percentage is not far from being seen). In a way this analysis is useful for analyzing your competitors.

The insight of user statistics is also very valuable, although it is always a problem in accuracy.

Cost

Free optional site Audits 199 knives

Compete

Advantages：

Practical user Interface

Express the right terminology (only visitors, visitors, etc.)

Multi-site comparison

Data easy to understand and good presentation

　　

Deficiencies

Accuracy

The number of sites is a little bit small, many sites are categorized into "low data sites"

Paid "Pro" option

Accuracy

Accuracy here is a matter of serious concern. The accuracy of the peak traffic curve and the general trend seems to us to be better, but based on this information, the data does not yet have enough trust to recommend the competitor's traffic.

ComScore

Unfortunately we can't login to comscore to see the peak of the data. Therefore, we cannot comment on the validity of the data.

Advantages：

N/A

Deficiencies

N/A

Accuracy

ComScore offers a number of valuable key keyword information on the local market size report and related industries.

Google Ad Planner

Advantages

Access to other Web site data is very useful

Search keywords are also useful

Audience interest data is interesting

Deficiencies

Accuracy

Missing data for small web sites

Accuracy

For some sites, Adplanner provides better data than other tools, but for some sites, the data is still very much offset. In general this data looks better than the others, but given the occasional "big data loss" I use their data to anticipate a customer's traffic or not feel comfortable.

　　

How to better use Google Ad Planner

Access to other sites and search keywords (inclination level) data is particularly valuable. Similarly, some other dimensions of reporting and visitor interest are also valuable. But traffic data is less meaningful and trustworthy.

Cost: Free

Google Insights

Advantages：

Trends in search terms

Geographic distribution Information

Reliable sources of data

Deficiencies

More difficult to read data

No hard traffic numbers.

It's harder to compare one site to another

　　

Accuracy

Given that the data provider has more data than anyone else on the Internet, you can be sure that its data will be better.

How to better use Google Insights Google search analytics

Google Insights is very helpful in finding the most valuable keywords from phrase phrases and many keywords. Google Insights is also particularly valuable when it comes to investigating rival websites and finding the most traffic for that keyword. At this point, it can also help you find that the word in the keyword group may be the most valuable.

Cost Free

Google Trends for Website

Advantages：

Good description of different key points between websites

Allow comparisons between different Web sites

Include Country Area information

Deficiencies

It's not very good for a relatively small site on a scale.

Not perfect in accuracy.

No numbers, just indices.

Accuracy：

When only the traffic from the search is compared, the data seems to be accurate, and selecting the winners in all traffic does not seem to be so accurate. Considering that these trends are derived from Google Trends it is still reasonable and can be used to depict a just blueprint for SEO needs.

And there's no exact data on it. It's not a pity, but it's easier for us to understand.

　　

How to better use Google Trends for Websites?

Google trends is great for a wide range of information gathering.

HitWise

Unfortunately we didn't get the data from Hitwise in time. The Hitwise team was also friendly and responded by agreeing to give us the data. Once we get the data, we'll be sharing. But we were not able to get the relevant data when the article was on deadline, so we couldn't complete our investigation.

Advantages

N/A

Deficiencies

N/A

Accuracy

N/A

Better use of Hitwise

Hitwise is similar to comscore and will give you a custom report that you like or you can create, depending on the type and requirements you tell them.

Costfree $695/Report

Quantcast

Advantages：

Traffic data is easy to track

The information is designed and presented in a very good way.

Demographic information (when available)

Media planning Tools

Deficiencies:

Unreliable

Lack of small and medium traffic Web site data

Accuracy

Can't compare sites to each other

　　

Accuracy：

There is no doubt that Quantcast's greatest shortcoming lies in its accuracy. I do not recommend that the data be shared with the customer when accurate estimates of competitor traffic are expected.

Cost Free

Semrush

Advantages：

Data includes sites of all sizes

Keywords List and rank

Most accurate data for tool monitoring

Deficiencies

The data is not perfect.

Need to spend to get a detailed list

Only Google's traffic data

　　

Accuracy

These data are not entirely correct, but generally semrush and we use other tools to test data in the same way without error. This clearly does not say that the data is foolproof or that some websites have some problems, but the data are indeed surprisingly accurate. As with some of Google's data, the information in the report is just Google's search engine traffic, but when we delve into a specific area of traffic analysis, this is our main focus area.

Better use of Semrush

Although the data is imperfect, the tool provides the closest data to the exact data, sharing potential expectations with customers and the flow of competitors I have at least some caveats to say. The most important thing is that the additional options, the ability to see the list of keywords and the ranking of competitor keywords are very appealing to me.

Cost:free $499 Monthly

Summary

I hope all these findings will be of value to you. For now, I rely more on Semrush to estimate competitor traffic and evaluate how competitors are doing in this piece, but all of these tools are constantly improving and adding small features, and I'm sure you'll come up with some creative ways to use that information.

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Original address: Http://www.seomoz.org/blog/monitor-competitor-traffic