Wwohn.com : Benchmark with Google Analytics

Posted by Oeroek in maart 6th, 2008

Did you ever wonder if you were the only one having that spike in traffic? Would it not be nice if Google Analytics would show you how other sites are performing? Google Analytics is now implementing the benchmark function into Google Analytics.

Benchmark your own website

Take for example the screenshot to the left (taken from the analytics weblog).

You will get a dashboard with visitors, bounce rate, time on site, etc. The blue dotted line represents the data from your own website. The black line represents the data of the benchmark.

Based on this information you should theoretically be able to determine if your visitors perform better or worse than the average.

The big question however will be how the benchmark is determined.

How is the benchmark determined?

If I see it correctly, there are two variables here.

You can pick your own industry/category to be compared with. If you look in the screenshot of the paragraph above you will not an option “open category list” at the top of the page.
Google divides the market into small, medium and large.

Eventually, this leads to categories with a minimal of 100 websites divided by size and category. Since the service will be anonymously, you will not know which sites you have been compared with. Not sure how this will work out.

How can you opt in?

To be able to use these benchmarking services you have to accept that your won data will be used to fill the benchmarking database. If you log into Google analytics the top of your screen will show a message about data sharing. You have to accept the data sharing to benefit from the benchmarking services.

As a side note, it can take a while before you can use the benchmarking service after you opt in. According to the benchmarking FAQ the reports should be populated first.

My opinion

I am going to participate with my own websites. The only thing to find out the advantages of this service is trying myself. It would for example be fantastic if I can confirm that certain seasonal variations occur throughout my industry.

The thing that worries me is that it is unclear how the benchmark is determined. You will never know if the benchmark is really comparable to your own website.

Eventually, I think this may prove to be a worthless service due to a lack of transparency. Not surprisingly though since few competitors would appreciate it if Google would distribute their stats onto the public web.

What do you think about this? What can this service be used for?

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