This is a two-way comparison between Google and SimilarWeb. There are two different rankings that Google uses to help determine the most popular searches, referred to as a Keyword Index and a Domain Index.
According to companies like Victorious, both algorithms are based on how many times the most popular search terms appear on the web. They are based on searches of thousands of pages. SimilarWeb used search volume to calculate these rankings, while Google used rankings based on the number of organic searches. Both algorithms are a bit skewed as they rely on organic traffic data from over a million queries per day.
We saw a spike in search traffic during the first week of August when the government shutdown took effect and the Dow plunged 800 points. After the government reopened, however, and the Dow made a few dips, search traffic didn’t pick up again until the first week of October.
The Keyword Index. This is how Google decides if you’re among the most popular searches.
The Domain Index. This is how SimilarWeb decides if a page on a domain is in the most popular searches for a keyword.
To measure search traffic for both these measures, we collected traffic for search queries. In this case, we are using Alexa to track traffic to webpages that contain “2013” in their URL. We’re not tracking the number of visits to the pages, but we are tracking the number of search queries associated with each link in the URL.
This metric is a measure of how many of the most common search queries are searched for, taken from Google. Google’s Keyword Planner analyzes the organic search trends and displays the following types of keyword searches on the SERPs:
Link Anchor: “Learn More About This Link”
Search Keywords: “Links to This Page”
Search Keyword Phrase: “Keyword Keywords”
Unique Words: “Other Keywords”