Anyway to tell where a site gets traffic from?

I am getting beat in alexa by a large margin (yeah I know alexa doesnt matter but the margin is large enough to make me think things through) by two websites that I completely out rank for every single keyphrase and keyword in our niche.

Is there any possible way to see where there traffic is coming from?

 

Install Google Analytics, it will tell you where your traffic and sales (goals) is coming from. If you want to know what keywords your competitors are getting, use keyword spy. Your time is better spent on your own site than theirs.

 

You can install google analytics.Then build backlinks for getting good SERP results.

 

well said ..install google analytics and then go for some good backlinks

 

Alexa is not an accurate indicator for traffic. You might also want to see google trends for website http://trends.google.com/websites

As you said you outrank these two websites in SERPs but they are getting more traffic, you might want to check your page title and descriptions in SERPs. If your competitors have better title then users are likely to click on their search result.

I don't think there is any tool that can tell about traffic referral for competitor sites. Your best bet is to check their backlinks and see if those sites have 'A LOT' of traffic.

 

Install Google analytics or statecounter it will help you.

thanks

 

google analytics is what your looking for (and dont worry,its free )

 

Ok, I think everyone who replied except Jiten have not read the OP correctly. You can not install any stat counter on someone else's website.

There is no way to tell where anyone is getting traffic from. Chances are, if they are ranking lower and getting more traffic, they are using several social media sites like Stumble Upon and Entrecard. Both will give you tons of traffic that look good in the stats but not in the bottom line.

It is not very important if they have more traffic if you are beating them in the Search Engine Rankings. You know you are doing the better overall job. Most non-organic traffic only last as long as you keep Stumbling, digging, dropping, or whatever else is needed. Just keep working hard on your site and ignore numbers like Alexa and other non-sense numbers.

 

Google's webmastertools goes a long way when done together with the analytics tool. ENjoy

 

READ THE FECKING QUESTION
He wants to know where his competitors are getting their traffic.

You can use seodigger and spyfu to get an idea of what keywords might be driving it, though that only tells you what keywords they rank for - not what's getting the results. (and neither are entirely reliable)

 

You could also bring up the google search engine and type in the following search request (just type what is in bold) link:www.websitename.com and insert the name of the site you want to check. This won't give you an indication of traffic volumes but it will tell you where they are getting their back links from and as back links = more traffic, you can at least target those same sites or exchange links etc.

 

Dammit ... don't just post with out reading what the Q is talking about !!!

As far as I know there is no tool which tells you... But in the past I've used spyfu.com .. they had a free thing back then.. wch gives you a bit of info about your competitors.

You can also use http://searchanalytics.compete.com/site_referrals/ gives some more info

All Success,
/G

 

Thanks to all who actually read the post.

I've already checked their backlinks and I can see a few things they are doing more then I am (example they blog post more then me) but that still doesn't change the fact that I rank 1 and have sitelinks for many important phrases and keywords.

I checked a few of the tools that you have suggested and there's nothing really there that I see that would put them above me so heavily in the traffic ranges.

This is going to take a while...

 

You should install google analytics so you can track results.
Also you need to get backlinks to your site in order to rise in the serps.

.......and we like that.

 

Get Woopra! It's way better then Google analytics. http://woopra.com

 

So what does Woopra offer than analytics does not? Analytics seems fairly complete to me.

 

Maybe they're paying for ads somewhere. Maybe they're mainstays on Slashdot. Who knows... without some serious investigative work, you aren't going to find out. Work on your site instead.

 

For me i uses google analytics

 

Good points taylorwilsdon. I have some sites that are 'nowhere' in SERPs. But they get 100-500 UV per day just from forum signatures and social bookmarking. Apart from what taylor said they might have some ad banners running on popular forums those might be impossible to detect unless you stumble upon their ads.

 

Google Analytics is good, also download Alexa toolbar and visit your page every day and run through the pages a few times. Depending on your site rating number, if it is around 500,000 this could make a big difference between you and your competitors. If the numbers are higher than this and less easy to manipulate, all this means is more users visiting the other site have the alexa toolbar installed.

A friend of mine used to own a internet cafe and let me set all the computers homepage to our local portal, we then installed alexa on each computer, just sit back and watch the stats grow. Does not mean anything just that the homepage was visited alot. Also be sure to set your site in your computer as your home site and if you can in any friends or families computers who will let you.