SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is the Israeli company working in the direction of web analytics.

Downloading of the browser SimilarWeb expansion connects you to a panel. Almost for certain the same is done by widgets for placement on the website. For 2018, in the company estimating traffic by the panel principle claim that they have the biggest panel in the world.

SimilarWeb is often used for competitive intelligence. Its free functions apply to a rough estimate of attendance and a traffic spectrum of these or those websites. SimilarWeb actively buys up startups which allow to monitor traffic. For example, on social networks, applications and the mobile Internet.

SimilarWeb PRO is the platform for a business intelligence allowing to reveal marketing strategies and tactics of any website or mobile application.

Data of SimilarWeb are often used by world editions, such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Wall St. Journal, TechCrunch and AdWeek.

Businessmen, owners of portals, marketing specialists and analysts daily use SimilarWeb services for efficiency evaluation and detection of the most successful marketing solutions.

History

2018: Scandal with removal of the Stylish expansion from browsers of Google and Mozilla

In July, 2018 it became known that Stylish which 2 million people use, transfers all history of visit of the websites by users, SimilarWeb is the company providing access to web analytics. That users were turned into a product and attached to a panel, the creator reported still then, but this statement, of course, did not reach the majority. Data collection went since January, 2017.

In the summer of 2018 already independent developer Robert Heaton detected the fact of data transmission and drew to it attention. He specified that even anonymous collection of information can give the interested persons there is a lot of information — for example, profiles of social networks, one-time links for an input without password, they are applied by many services, believing that such link is only in a mailbox of the user.

Google and Mozilla removed from directories of the Stylish expansion which 2 million people used. The vast majority of users did not know that expansion transfers more than a year all history of their browsers to the Israeli service of web analytics SimilarWeb.

2017: Purchase of Stylish service

The browser Stylish expansion decorating the visited sites using the user styles of a design was independent till August, 2016. Then it was sold, and in January, 2017 sold once again — SimilarWeb.

2015: Purchase of Swayy for $5 million and Quettra for $10 million for the analysis of audience of mobile applications

Since 2015 SimilarWeb has an opportunity to monitor social media — it purchased the relevant company Swayy for $5 million. There is a suspicion that Swayy was fallen in love by mathematics — the local command developed the convenient system of recommendations and selection of content.

By the end of 2015 for $10 million SimilarWeb purchased the system of mobile analytics Quettra.

2014: Purchase of a team of developers of technologies of competitive intelligence

At the beginning of 2014 SimilarWeb strengthened the system the purchase of a team developing the mechanism of competitive intelligence Tapdog. By then SimilarWeb already had a service of verification of traffic on 5000 different sources.