Member Avatar for tiger86

I'm very curious if there is a certain time in the day when people are on social networks more, or any site for that matter and I was hoping someone could point me to a site that shows you hour by hour traffic for websites. I know that in the apache control panel of your own website you can see hour by hour site popularity, but I don't know if there is a way to see that for other sites without being an admin.

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Short answer for : you cannot view another site’s Google Analytics or Apache server logs unless the site owner explicitly gives you access. As noted, internal reporting tools can show hourly granularity — but that applies only to accounts with permission. Public, platform-level hourly data is rare; most external options are estimates.

Use third‑party traffic estimators to get a reasonable baseline and competitor comparison. Services such as SimilarWeb and SEMrush provide visit trends, device splits and day/hour patterns (estimates based on panels and other signals). They work best for larger properties; expect noise for small sites and always treat numbers as directional rather than exact.

For social networks specifically, rely on two things: (1) platform or publishing‑tool analytics for your own pages/accounts (these show when your audience is active), and (2) aggregated “best time to post” studies from social tools. Tools like Sprout Social and scheduling platforms extrapolate audience behavior and give posting recommendations you can test. Use Google Trends as a topical proxy when you need hourly/day spikes for search interest rather than raw site traffic.

Practical workflow: pick target networks, benchmark competitors with a traffic tool, select 3 candidate posting windows, run identical posts for 2–4 weeks, and measure impressions/engagement in your account analytics. Validate and iterate by timezone and audience segment. Do not scrape or try to bypass access controls — use official APIs and platform reporting, and remember third‑party estimates have sampling biases.

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Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

If you have access to the reporting, you can definitely see traffic per hour. I have reporting rights on Webtrends for a client and though I am not the admin, I can customize my data to reflect granular visits. I know I can do the same thing with Google Analytics.

Member Avatar for tiger86

hey digital nice to see you (well, I can't actually see you, but you get my drift).
Can I view sites that I have nothing to do with and am not affiliated with via Google Analytics?

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