- Check your own traffic in GA4
- Check your Google search traffic in Search Console
- Why GA4 and Search Console never match
- Check a competitor's traffic
- How far to trust traffic estimates
- Checking traffic to a single page
- What about traffic from AI tools?
- What to look at once you have the numbers
- My verdict
- Frequently asked questions
To check your own website traffic, open Google Analytics 4 and go to Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and use Search Console's Performance report for Google search clicks. To check a competitor's traffic, you can only estimate it, using tools such as Similarweb or an SEO suite that models visits from panels and search data.
That split is the whole story. On your own site, you get measured numbers. On anyone else's, you get a model's best guess, and different tools will give you different guesses for the same site.
Check your own traffic in GA4
- Open Google Analytics and choose your property.
- In the left menu, select Reports.
- Select Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition.
- Read sessions and users by channel to see where visitors come from.
- To see only organic Google traffic, type google / organic into the search bar above the table and press Enter.
- Change the date range at the top right to compare periods, for example this month against the same month last year.
Google describes this as the report that shows where new and returning visitors come from, which is different from the User acquisition report that looks only at how people first arrived. If the report isn't in your menu, Google says an editor can add it back to the left navigation.
Check your Google search traffic in Search Console
GA4 tells you what people did on your site. Search Console tells you how you did in Google before they arrived. Open the Performance report and you'll see four numbers:
| Metric | What Google says it means |
|---|---|
| Clicks | How many times someone clicked through to your site from Google Search |
| Impressions | How many times your site appeared in results |
| CTR | Clicks divided by impressions |
| Average position | The average position of your topmost result |
The default view covers the past three months. Switch the table to Queries to see which searches bring you visits, or Pages to see which URLs earn them. If impressions climb while clicks stay flat, your titles and snippets aren't earning the click.
Why GA4 and Search Console never match
People panic when the two disagree, but they count different things. Search Console counts clicks from Google results. GA4 counts sessions on your site, from every source, and only when its tag fires and the visitor's consent and browser settings allow it. Use Search Console for search performance and GA4 for what happens after the click.
Check a competitor's traffic
You can't log into someone else's analytics, so every competitor traffic tool is estimating. Similarweb, for example, explains that its figures blend four kinds of input: first-party analytics that millions of sites choose to share with it, a contributory network of consumer products that collect anonymous device data, data partnerships, and public data it indexes itself. It then runs that through machine learning models to estimate visits.
SEO suites such as Semrush, Ahrefs and SE Ranking take a different route: they estimate organic traffic from where a site ranks and how many people search for those keywords. That measures search visits only, not total traffic. I've compared the options in free tools to check a competitor's website traffic.
How far to trust traffic estimates
- Compare sites inside the same tool, never across tools. The trend and the ranking between competitors are more reliable than the raw number.
- Big sites get better estimates than small ones, because there's more data to model.
- Organic estimates miss traffic from email, social, direct visits and referrals.
- Check the estimate for your own site against your GA4 numbers. That tells you how far off the tool runs in your niche.
If Similarweb's estimates don't suit your market, my list of Similarweb alternatives covers other panels and search-based tools.
Checking traffic to a single page
Most of the time you don't need the site total; you need to know how one page is doing. In GA4, the Pages and screens report (under Engagement) lists views for each page, and you can add a filter for the page path you care about. In Search Console, add a page filter in the Performance report to see clicks and impressions for that URL only. Put the two side by side for a page you've just updated and you'll know within a few weeks whether the change helped.
What about traffic from AI tools?
Visits from AI assistants such as ChatGPT can show up in GA4 as referrals from their domains, but some arrive without a referrer and get lumped into direct traffic. If your direct traffic jumps on pages that rank well in AI answers, that's often the reason. Search Console doesn't separate AI Overview clicks out; Google counts them in your overall search data.
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What to look at once you have the numbers
- Which channels send visitors who stay, not just visitors.
- Which pages pull in search traffic and which have impressions but few clicks.
- Month-on-month trend rather than one week, since holidays and weekends swing traffic.
- For competitors: which pages and topics bring them search visits that you don't cover.
To see how much demand a keyword has, turn to my guide to finding keyword search volume for free.
My verdict
For your own site, trust GA4 and Search Console and stop checking third-party estimates of yourself. For competitors, pick one tool, use it for comparisons and trends, and never quote its figures as fact. The pages that send your competitors traffic matter far more than the total.
Rankings are the natural companion to visits, and I show how to check them in my guide to checking your Google rankings.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check my website traffic for free?
Use Google Analytics 4 (Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition) for all visits and Google Search Console's Performance report for clicks from Google Search. Both are free.
Can I see another website's traffic?
Only as an estimate. Tools such as Similarweb and SEO suites model traffic from panel, partner and search data, so numbers vary between tools.
Why don't GA4 and Search Console numbers match?
Search Console counts clicks from Google results; GA4 counts sessions from every source, and only when its tag runs and consent allows it.
How accurate are website traffic checkers?
They're best for comparing sites and spotting trends inside one tool. Check a tool's estimate of your own site against GA4 to see how far off it runs.
How do I see only Google organic traffic in GA4?
In the Traffic acquisition report, type google / organic in the search bar above the table and press Enter.
