best way to track other sites' traffic

[crazyeightyeights]

Hey everyone, got a question:

anyone know the best way to track the traffic of other web sites? i'm aware of companies that charge a lot of money to do this as well as free sites that offer less-than-accurate info -- what do any of you recommend? i know there are numerous ways to track the traffic of my OWN site, but i'm not interested in that. any helpful suggestions and opinions are welcome.

Thanks!

[Chris]

Google analytics.

Free, powerful, easy.

[Mr. Pink]

Chris,

Are you saying that anyone can use Google Analytics to track any site?

So, someone else can track my site, without even having any privileges or access to my server? Is that the case?

[Blue Cat Buxton]

I don't think you can directly how a specific site that you do not control, is performing via analytics.

The google tools will give you an idea of traffic for a particular term, and Alexa reportedly will show traffic levels to any site (but is only based on stats they collect from visitors with their toolbar installed).

[Selkirk]

Some competitive research sites (Linked to yahoo.com):

Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.yahoo.com)
Compete (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/yahoo.com/)
Google Trends (http://trends.google.com/websites?q=yahoo.com&geo=all&date=all)
SEM Rush (http://www.semrush.com/search.php?q=yahoo.com&db=us) (?)
Quantcast (http://www.quantcast.com/yahoo.com)
Domain Tools (http://whois.domaintools.com/yahoo.com)

[Chris]

Chris,

Are you saying that anyone can use Google Analytics to track any site?

So, someone else can track my site, without even having any privileges or access to my server? Is that the case?
No, I misunderstood the question, I thought he was asking about his own site.