The big news is that Google publicly released a list of the top 1,000 sites by unique users as measured by Ad Planner. The list ranks sites based on category, unique visitors, reach and page views. Not only has Google come out with this list, but they are also allowing advertisers to specify that they only want their content ads to show on these top 1,000 sites.

To activate this filter in AdWords, go to your AdWords account and select “non Ad Planner 1000″ within the “category filters” section.

The top list lists facebook.com as the number one ranking site globally with 570,000,000,000 page views and 540,000,000 unique visitors. The list will be updated monthly and does not include adult sites, ad networks, domains that don’t have publicly visible content or don’t load properly, and certain Google sites. Yes, Google removes some of their own sites.

Where does this data come from? Google explains it comes from “aggregated Google Toolbar data from users who have opted in to enhanced features, publisher opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in external consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. The data is aggregated over millions of users and powered by computer algorithms.”

The other Ad Planner features released today include a way to export your Google Content Network Placements from Ad Planner to AdWords and you can now create lists within Ad Planner.

For more details, see the Google AdWords Blog.

The Publisher Center gives publishers a way to validate and update the data found within Google Ad Planner. Google Ad Planner shows advertisers statistics on traffic, demographics, and so on about specific sites on the internet. Ad Planners purpose is to give advertisers more information on sites that run AdSense for them to make informed decisions about their ads. The Publisher Center allows publishers to confirm the data Ad Planner displays, and also add more detailed information about their sites to be displayed in Ad Planner.

I have posted detailed screen shots of Ad Planner at the Search Engine Roundtable. Google has also posted a short video demonstration of Publisher Center:

Ad Planner is a tool that lets advertisers identify web sites that might be good places to advertise — even web sites that aren’t in Google’s advertiser network (i.e., AdSense). You can pick any web site and Ad Planner will return detailed demographics of its users, such as gender, age, education, household income, and more; it also reports what keywords are typically searched on the site, and other sites that its users tend to visit.

The new features announced this week include:

• Define your audience by keywords and geography — You can provide a keyword and see how popular it is in different geographic areas.
• Manage your site results — You can choose how your results will be displayed.
• Interactive bubble chart — This tool lets you analyze the demographics of your advertising plan in a more visual interface.
• International demographic data — Ad Planner audience data now includes France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.

Previous Coverage

When Ad Planner first launched, Danny Sullivan wrote Google Ad Planner Launches, Offers Site Demographic Profiles with screenshots and background on where Google gets the demographic data. A month later, Andrew Goodman offered his review of the product in Google Ad Planner: Another Disruptive Technology From Mountain View. Last month, Brad Geddes offered tips on using Ad Planner in Use Demographic Targeting to Reach Your Customers in New Ways.

About two seconds after Google Trends For Websites came out, people started noticing that one company’s websites oddly had no data available — Google’s own. Google will tell you all about the traffic to competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft but gives away nothing about itself. The same is true for the newly-released Google Ad Planner tool. It’s not right, despite Google’s weak excuse of not wanting to provide "financial guidance" about itself via the tool. Google either needs to post its own information pronto or allow any company to opt out.

The First Rule Of Google Trends Is You Don’t Talk About Google Trends

Why do searches for traffic data about google.com, youtube.com, blogger.com, and other Google properties reveal nothing? The official statement, from Google:

We have a policy of not providing interim financial guidance, and have decided not to release Google numbers in accordance with that policy. We are always open to reconsidering decisions we’ve made, but at this point, for these financial guidance reasons, we do not share Google numbers in the Trends for Websites tool.

First of all, Google’s policy has been to avoid giving financial guidance period, not just "interim" guidance. To go back to the original founders’ IPO letter:

Although we may discuss long term trends in our business, we do not plan to give earnings guidance in the traditional sense.

Financial Guidance Excuses

So let’s skip this "interim" guidance nonsense. Yes, every quarter Google does officially release some information. But even between quarters, there’s no end of Google announcements or interviews that have stats or figures that could be seen as "guidance" about the company. For example, Eric Schmidt commented recently that a stock split is unlikely but doesn’t rule it out. Isn’t that guidance?

It’s not like Google hands out traffic figures on a regular basis anyway. Here’s the press release for its last quarterly filing. Now how much traffic did Google.com get compared to the previous quarter or the same time the year before? The release doesn’t say. Can we conclude that traffic figures aren’t financial guidance period? Because if they were, I should be seeing them here.

I can understand concerns Google might have about traffic figures being misinterpreted by financial analysts to mean something about the company’s future prospects. Goodness knows folks jumped all over comScore’s paid search clicks figure when that was only partial data that meant nothing (and then blamed comScore for their own bad analysis — and some continue assuming those figures alone mean anything).

Still, there are plenty of other sources for traffic data. These will get interpreted regardless of what Google puts out there. And that leads to another point. By withholding its own traffic estimates, Google is making it harder for anyone trying to interpret figures by looking at a "basket" of reports. As a result, some might paint a better or worse picture of how Google is doing because they lack figures from an important new tool to have in the mix, Google’s own.

Lastly, while I can’t get traffic data from Google Trends, I can still find the number of people searching for Google. That rise will be seen by some as a proxy for traffic figures. So why not just give me the traffic figures themselves?

Pick your point, the financial guidance argument just feels like a convenient excuse. Let’s see Google reconsider this right now and change its mind.

Allow Opting-Out & Myth Of Private Traffic Data

With the release of Google Trends For Websites, there’s been talk that Google is somehow handing out "confidential" information about websites and should thus allow for opting-out of reporting. My response to that on Sphinn was:

Confidential? Please. You were getting it from places like Alexa, Compete and Quantcast already. And if you were paying big bucks, you were getting it from Hitwise, comScore and NetRatings. Data’s been out there for years, in various degrees of accuracy — but to say it is confidential is overreaching.

This data IS out there already, not just from Google but from a variety of other tools as I named. Saying that what happens on your web site is "private" is like saying that someone standing on a public street and watching the people who go in and out of a store and logging what they bought is violating the store’s privacy. The store is out in public view — the data is easily seen and logged.

OK, side note here. I’ve long written about how ISPs are a bigger issue to me with privacy than search engines, in how they merrily see EVERYTHING we do on the web and some secretly sell that data to web metrics companies (secretly, because they certainly don’t tell their customers this is happening, nor do the web metrics companies tell you the ISPs that they harvest from).

There are private things that happen within your website, stuff that no one can really learn without your active help. But much data ceased being "private" years ago due to the ISP harvesting along with toolbar tracking. Hence, yelling that Google shouldn’t release such information is trying to push the genie back into the bottle.

Similarly, the idea that people should be able to opt-out largely doesn’t make much sense. None of the other tools allow for opting-out of them. Google could add an opt-out, but it would just mean the data was out there in a variety of ways — especially through paid web metrics tools.

Still, I’m totally behind the idea that Google should provide opt-out as long as it continues to effectively opt-out itself. That’s just not fair. If Google stays out, then it should give any site the ability to do the same without the absurd requirement that the sites completely opt-out of being listed in Google at all.

Related Webmaster Issues

In preparing this follow-up article, I asked more about the underlying data that Google uses, especially whether the Google Toolbar was involved. Google said it couldn’t discuss its "secret sauce," which I found disappointing. But as my Google Ad Planner Launches, Offers Site Demographic Profiles post explains, I think the Google Toolbar is involved.

Also spotted today via Sphinn, Google Trends For Website results are now starting to show up in Google searches for particular domains. Of course, looking at a search for searchengineland.com, I see that Quantcast and Alexa reports for our site are also there. So why should Google stay out? Maybe they shouldn’t. But since Google already blocks regular Google Trends data from being listed, this might be an oversight. A nice change might be a OneBox/Smart Answer-style result at the top of the results that link out to ratings from a variety of providers, including Google Trends.

Opt-In Data Sharing

In contrast to opt-out, it might be nice if Google went the opposite way. Allow for verified traffic metrics, like Quantcast does. Over there, you can choose to carry Quantcast code on your web site. Do that, and Quantcast will adjust your figures based on your actual traffic, rather than guesses. And some good news: according to the Google Ad Planner help files, it’s something being considered:

In the future, we may consider ways to improve the accuracy of Google Ad Planner data by allowing owners to contribute additional data from their sites.

OK, I know there are about six sites out on the web that still don’t yet have some type of Google tracking code already on their sites (AdSense, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, FeedBurner … the ways that Google tracks goes on and on). So the idea that we start handing Google even more data isn’t going to go over well with everyone. Aaron Wall notes again how the data Google already has enables them to do many things — and I’m with him on lots of it (see also my Google: Master Of Closing The Loop? post).

But consider this. Personally, I don’t want to stick 1,001 different tracking codes on my site for Quantcast, Google, FeedBurner, and so on. C’mon, Google — take the lead to start an open tracking system. Anyone can place tracking code that anyone else can use and tap into. Get all the metrics companies together and agree on some much needed standards. Oh, and shove it on your own sites so we know what’s going on there just like you know what goes on with us. Now that would be transparency.

Google has launched Google Ad Planner as an invite-only beta. It’s designed to allow advertisers to identify sites with demographics they’re interested in — even sites that aren’t part of Google’s advertising network.

The tool provides a greater depth of information about sites than Google Trends For Websites that came out last week. In fact, that’s more a "light" version that Google told Search Engine Land was spun off from Google Ad Planner:

Initially, we were going to launch only Google Ad Planner. However, when Google management looked at the product, they wanted to make sure that we also provide the same data to our non-advertising users – i.e., consumers - in a format that was accessible and comprehensive. Based on this decision, we created and launched Trends for Websites prior to the launch of Google Ad Planner.

The screenshot below gives a glimpse of how much further the new tool goes (click on it to see a larger image):

You can see how for ESPN, Google reports the sex, age, education, and household income of visitors, in addition to information you can get from Google Trends.

Using the research filtering tool, advertisers can set demographic criteria they’re after, push a button, then get a list of sites.

There’s also a media planning tool. How does that automatically flow into Google’s ad offerings? Not very well, it seems from the help information so far.

You can filter sites to find those that carry Google AdSense. From the help pages:

You can filter Google Ad Planner search results to display sites in the Google content network only. If you’re a Google AdWords advertiser, you may then target these sites from your AdWords account.

But to do that — or to implement your media plan with anyone, you have to log into your AdWords account or other media buying platform and separately target these sites. From help:

Can I buy ad placements on sites through Google Ad Planner?

Not at this time. However, you can export your media plan to other media planning and buying tools, such as DoubleClick MediaVisor.

Ad Planner does not help advertisers get in touch with content owners directly, nor is there any option for website owners to somehow participate in a brokerage system through it.

Where’s the data coming from? As with the Google Trends release, Google says from a variety of sources. Here’s a compilation of key statements from the Ad Planner help area:

Google Ad Planner combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in external consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. The data is aggregated over millions of users and powered by computer algorithms; it doesn’t contain personally-identifiable information.

Google Ad Planner demographic information is provided by third-party market research data, opt-in consumer user panel data, and algorithms that improve the demographic estimates. Demographic data is available for the United States only.

The Google Analytics data in Google Ad Planner comes from website owners who have opted to share their data in an anonymous form. (Learn more about Google Analytics data sharing.)

Google Ad Planner doesn’t use individual site-level information from Google Analytics. Instead, Google Ad Planner uses Google Analytics data in an anonymous and aggregate fashion. Google Analytics data is combined with other data sources to calibrate macro-level insights into website traffic patterns, site visitation across geographies, and related websites and searches.

The site data displayed in Google Ad Planner is updated regularly, and reflects a 30-day period.

As part of a follow-up to Google Trends that I’ve been doing, I’d previously asked Google for more about the panel being used. Sadly, they weren’t forthcoming:

We do not disclose the elements of our secret sauce as these elements are subject to change. Similar to Google search, disclosing our data sources could also encourage people to game the system. You can imagine some websites would want to make their numbers look more attractive and would try to find ways to game Google Trends for Websites estimates. In addition, it takes time to determine which of these data sources will end up being useful, and it turns out that combining various sources of data ensures higher quality.

Sigh. Another Google black box, then. It’s noteworthy the Google Toolbar isn’t being mentioned. I specifically asked to have confirmation that the toolbar is NOT in the mix, and the "secret sauce" reply above is all I got.

That makes me think that toolbar data IS being used. In particular, the focus on Google Analytics data feels like a sideshow. Google can’t rely on Google Analytics as a core data source for this information, because of the simple reason that not every site runs it. In contrast, using Google Toolbar data would give them a nearly complete sample of all sites out there.

Google Analytics data can be used as a "correcting" metric, however. For example, Google might estimate how much traffic flows to a particular web site based on toolbar visits that it logs. It might then compare those estimates to how much traffic the sites themselves report through Google Analytics. The difference could then be used to adjust traffic for sites not running Google Analytics.

News of the new tool had already leaked out before the announcement. The Wall Street Journal has a nice pre-reaction piece quoting ad execs and citing fears some may have. See also more from Techmeme here and here.