A common question site owners ask themselves is “how can I find out how many visitors are looking at any particular site?” There is the "free" way and there is the "fee" way.

There are three companies who monitor websites’ traffic and provide this information for a fee.

• comScore Media Metrix at www.comscore.com/metrix/ 
• Nielsen//NetRatings at www.nielsen-netratings.com 
• Hitwise at www.hitwise.com

These companies also put out press releases that explain how you can gain access to free published reports. You will also find the comScore Media Metrix Top 50 Online Property Ranking by sifting through these press releases. Another option you can consider when looking for website traffic data, is to use google’s search engine to type the website name along with the phrase “comScore”. You will find many leads pop-up in google that identify the traffic numbers.

If traffic data is not available through press releases or by googling the keywords, and purchasing the data from one of the three companies is too expensive, then take a look at Alexa at www.alexa.com. Amazon owns Alexa, a company that ranks websites according to the amount of traffic it has. While you will not have access to the names of visitors, this will give you an indication of which sites drive the most traffic.