This method of checking the traffic for other websites is based on a simple fact: most tracking services offer the possibility of making the stats public if the owner wishes so and others don’t even ask. Some do that, and you can count on the search engines to index those pages. A pleasant surprise was Performancing, which blocked their Pmetrics stats with the robots.txt file.

Some give you keywords used by people to reach those websites, others just the level of traffic. I’m sure you can use some of them to find some new keywords to target, or just to satisfy your curiosity.

1. Sitemeter

site:sitemeter.com site summary

Found a couple of nice stats for some big blogs like those of LifeHacker, Gawker or InstaPundit. I’m sure there are more. 2 million visits for Gawker this week and 3.2 million for LifeHacker. Nice!

2. StatCounter

site:statcounter.com summary

These guys also show the keywords, which I like. Just one example here, since I couldn’t find big sites so easily. If you got the time or you can make a tool, I’m sure there are some gems at StatCounter as well.

3. Awstats

“Created by awstats”

You have to come a bit through these searches, but you can also find some goodies here. As example, the stats of a subdomain from Princeton University. No keywords here but there are others that have them.

4. GoStats

site:gostats.com summary

I like these guys. You don’t even have to use the above search to see the traffic of the websites they cater to. They have all their websites in a directory with websites arranged by category. Look here. Also, you might be interested in what kind of traffic GoStats themselves have.

(thanks for the tip Richard)

Any others you know to add to this list?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!