Website traffic checker: 7 tools against connected Google Analytics data

You can check traffic of any website in seconds, but judging the answer takes the true figure, which you rarely have. Some store owners publish it: they connect Google Analytics to Similarweb, and Similarweb marks the site Publicly Verified. Those sites give a measured number to compare with each estimate.

We took the list from Spytrend’s Shops catalogue, which flags stores with connected Google Analytics. The rule was fixed before any tool was opened: US Shopify stores in five traffic bands, from 1,000 to over 1 million monthly visits, the first three flagged stores in each band through every tool. Of 6,458 rows scanned, 23 carried the flag, or 0.36%, so this check works on very few sites. We then ran all 23 through Similarweb, so its result covers every flagged store we found.

All 23 showed the Publicly Verified badge, and the Google Analytics view matched the catalogue figure for July to September within 0.06%. One limit matters: the reference is what Similarweb displays from the connection. We did not see the owners’ own Google Analytics accounts, so this test trusts the connection, and it measures Similarweb’s estimate against Similarweb’s display of measured data. Stores that publish their analytics are a self-selected group, so these misses may not describe every store. Because the list came from Spytrend, it sits outside the ranking.

Access during the test: Similarweb on a trial account, TrendTrack and PPSpy on paid plans, Spytrend on a paid plan, and the three free tools without an account.

Open a verified site in Similarweb and the first number is still the modeled estimate. The Google Analytics figure sits behind a switch called Show Google Analytics Data, which is off by default. On merachfit.com the default view gave 2.185M visits for July to September, while Google Analytics gave 9.570M, so the estimate was 77% low.

Across all 23 stores the median miss was 35%, ranging from 2% to 81%. Three stores were within 20%, and 7 were off by more than 50%. Only gym-mikolo.com and accessoriesforbyd.com came out high.

With the switch on, the same page shows 9.570M total visits and 3.190M a month, and the Google Analytics mark appears beside each measured block. Unique visitors and returning-visitor figures show N/A in this view.

So an estimate and a measured figure can sit one switch apart on a single page, and the badge marks the few sites that have both. If you check competitor website traffic on a site with no badge, the estimate is all there is. We could not confirm that the switch exists on Similarweb’s free pages, because our signed-out visit never reached the page.

These are the 15 stores that went through every tool. The other eight ran through Similarweb only, with these errors: rayneo.com −9%, plankandbeam.com −20%, hsialife.com −70%, sachinandbabi.com −57%, gym-mikolo.com +2%, hozodesign.com −24%, suuksess.com −78%, xalpheor.com −81%. The September column is the comparison month for TrendTrack and PPSpy. Ahrefs figures are its current month and cover organic search only, so they are shown for scale, not as an error.

Size did not explain the miss. Across all 23 stores the median miss was 45% above 1 million monthly visits (6 stores), 34% from 200,000 to 1 million (5), 48% from 50,000 to 200,000 (5), 29% from 10,000 to 50,000 (3) and 38% under 10,000 (4). The groups are small, but no size was close.

On these stores TrendTrack’s September figure was the same as the Google Analytics figure on 14 of 15; on marsghc.com its chart showed 0 for six months. Spytrend’s figures matched too, as they must, since the list came from it. Identical figures mean these tools carry what Similarweb shows; they are not an independent measurement.

The exactness does not carry over to an ordinary store. On four stores without connected analytics, tested on 3 November 2026, Spytrend’s July–September total stayed within one visit of Similarweb’s default estimate on all four, and TrendTrack’s on three. So on the 99.6% of rows without the flag, expect the estimate and its errors.

PPSpy’s store list shows one Monthly Visit figure with no month beside it. On 5 of 15 stores it sat within 1% of September. On others it matched an older month in the same store’s history: voluspa.com showed 125.4K, which is June’s 125,372, against 197,171 in September, and merachfit.com showed 1.9M, close to April’s 1,943,403.

For portlandleathergoods.com and majorfitness.com that put it more than double September’s figure. Use it as a rough size class, and do not compare two stores on it.

A search for “check traffic website free” usually means a quick look at a rival without paying. The free tools estimate one thing: visits from organic search. No website visitor traffic checker in this group reported total visits. Compared with total visits, Ahrefs showed a median 1.9% on the 15 stores, from 0.2% to 45%.

• Ahrefs: returned figures for all 15 stores without an account. Merachfit.com showed 33.9K organic traffic against 3,057,343 total visits in September.
• Ubersuggest: one search without an account, then a sign-up window. Merachfit.com showed 61,423 organic visitors, nearly twice the Ahrefs number for the same store.
• SE Ranking: the form opened a result page that stayed empty for more than 30 seconds without an account, so we have no figures from it.

That is one channel of a site’s traffic, and two tools disagreed by nearly double on it. For a store that lives on paid social, a low organic figure says little about its size.

The honest answer to how to know the traffic of any website is that you mostly cannot. For the few sites with a published figure, you can read it. For the rest, nobody outside the business has a measured number, and these limits apply:

• An estimate gives an order of magnitude. Misses ran from 2% to 81%, nearly all low, so one estimate cannot separate two stores of similar size.
• Agreement between tools proves little. Three of these tools carry figures that also appear in Similarweb, so three matching numbers can be one number.
• An organic estimate describes a channel. It shows whether search matters to a site, not how big the site is.