Google Street View boosts traffic to Google Maps
Last month saw the controversial launch of Google Street View. But whatever your view of the privacy issue, there’s no doubt it has been a source of increased interest in Google maps. Since the launch on the 19th March, traffic has gone up by a whopping 41%, making Google maps the 20th most visited site in the UK.
The amount of time people spent on the Google maps also went up. ‘Time on site’ is a good measure of whether or not people like what they find on a website, and want to engage with it. Average ‘time on site’ for an informational site like Google maps is usually around 2 to 3 minutes. Following the launch, average ‘time on site’ jumped from an already strong 5 min 28 secs to 7 min 6 secs.
All data is thanks to Hitwise UK.
Here’s a graph showing the increase in traffic:

So for Google, was it really worth all the negative publicity? I think the numbers speak for themselves. But what do you think?




