Knowing a website's traffic statistics is enlightening whether you want yours to be as popular, you're considering purchasing a banner ad or you simply want to sate your curiosity. Although most webmasters use Google Analytics or proprietary tracking tools such as those that come with WordPress, you can find information about websites in a variety of methods.
Ask the Owner
Although not every site owner will give you access to her analytics data, asking is the easiest way to find this information, especially if you're planning a business relationship. Website owners can grant access to tools like Google Analytics or send screenshots of their WordPress dashboard or main page of AWStats. Some websites may already include some of this information on pages intended for PR or sponsorship opportunities.
Alexa
Alexa is a third-party rating tool that provides a rank for websites against other websites in the same location or in the world. Alexa also provides information about the readers of the website, including age and gender, as well as displaying the number of pages linking to the site you look up. Other information you can find with Alexa includes reach, bounce rate, views per visitor and time spent on the site. However, Alexa may generate different results from some other traffic tools.
Traffic Estimate
Another third-party solution for looking up information about sites that you don't own is Traffic Estimate. Enter any URL to see how many hits the website has had over time. Traffic Estimate also shows text used for incoming links, Google PageRank, Alexa rank and WHOIS information, among other data. The more popular a website is, the more likely that this tool will be listed in its database and display all the possible information.
Server Tools
If the website owner has implemented analytics tools on his own website, you may be able to access those pages if they're not secured. For example, Webalizer statistics are often located at "domain.com/webalizer," where "domain.com" is the actual website, while AWStats may be located at "domain.com/cgi-bin/awstats.pl." You can also try "stats.domain.com" or "domain.com/statistics." However, not every website uses these tools or has them installed in the default location.
