Measurement and analytics
How to check website traffic, yours and a competitor's, without guessing
Ilyes Massoudi7 min readThe short answer
Your own site's traffic is known from two places only: Google Analytics or an equivalent inside the site, and Search Console for what comes from Google specifically. Any external tool giving you a traffic number for your site or a competitor's estimates rather than measures: it builds the figure from browsing samples or from keyword rankings multiplied by estimated search volumes, and it is badly wrong for small sites and Arabic sites, because its Arabic keyword databases are weaker. Use external tools to compare the direction between competitors, not to read the number, and always compare against your own site, whose real figure you know, to see how far the tool over- or under-states.
Your own traffic: two sources only
Google Analytics 4, or any analytics tool installed inside your site, such as Matomo or Clarity. These count every actual visit from every source: Google, Instagram, Snapchat, ads, links and direct. Explained in the GA4 article.
Search Console for one part: the clicks that came from Google search results, with the queries that brought them. It sees nothing else, but what it sees is Google’s own data, not an estimate.
If you have neither, nobody knows your traffic, including the tools that claim to.
Why external tools invent numbers
The traffic checkers you paste any URL into work in one of two ways, and both are estimates:
Panels: Similarweb and its kind collect data from users who installed browser extensions and from partnerships with internet providers, then extrapolate to the whole internet. For large sites the estimate is reasonable. For sites under a few thousand visits a month there is no sample, so the tool either declines or guesses. In the Gulf the panel is far smaller than in America or Europe.
Rankings multiplied by volume: Ahrefs, Semrush and Ubersuggest see which keywords a site ranks for and in which position, then multiply each keyword’s estimated search volume by an assumed click share for that position. The result is “estimated organic traffic”. This goes badly wrong in Arabic, because their Arabic keyword databases are much smaller and the volumes less accurate, so an Arabic site always appears smaller than it is. And it never sees Instagram, ads or direct visits.
How to estimate a competitor’s traffic more honestly
Do not look for the number. Look for the direction and the ratio:
- Measure the gap between you and them in one tool. If the tool says your site gets a thousand search visits and your competitor three thousand, and you know your real Analytics figure is two thousand, the tool under-states by about half, and your competitor is around six thousand. The ratio is more honest than the number.
- Look at their rankings for your keywords. Search twenty commercial keywords in your sector from your phone and record who appears in the top three. This is the most accurate free indicator of who takes the commercial visits.
- Count their Google Maps reviews and their velocity. A new review every week means real customers every week.
- Watch their activity. New pages, posts, ads visible on your keywords. Activity precedes traffic.
Tool table: what each actually sees
| Tool | What it actually measures | For your site | For a competitor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | All visits, all sources | Accurate | Cannot see |
| Search Console | Google clicks and queries | Accurate | Cannot see |
| Similarweb | Estimate from panels | Wrong for small sites | Reasonable for large only |
| Ahrefs / Semrush | Estimated search traffic from rankings | Under-states Arabic | Direction only |
| Ubersuggest | As above with a smaller database | Under-states more | Weak |
| On-site hit counters | Page views | Approximate | Cannot see |
The number that actually matters
Visit counts are tempting because they are large and easy. But ten thousand visits on an article about the meaning of a word are not worth a hundred visits on “AC maintenance company number Jeddah”. The number that drives decisions is enquiries by source and by page, and that needs conversion tracking, not an external tool.
Where this sits in the audit
In the audit I compare you with three competitors you choose, channel by channel, on something measurable: who appears for your actual keywords with per-country volumes, who AI answers mention, who buys the ads, and the reviews, not on traffic numbers guessed by a tool. Where a figure is an estimate, I say it is an estimate.