Recently, Google Analytics has introduced a benchmarking (beta) option that shows how the website's statistics compare against other industry verticals. Currently (at the time of this writing), the available metrics you are able to compare are Visits, Pageviews, Pages per Visit, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, and New Visits.
I've tested it against my wife's blog site regards to "Graphic Design & Publishing" verticle. What I've noticed is that the Google's benchmarking data starts to appear from February 09, 2008.
It could be a temporary thing, but based on what I observed, it is best to check when the benchmarking data appear and use that starting date as the first point of comparison.
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Once, I've updated the date range for better comparison, following result appeared. (She has been slacking on updating her blog recently...). One thing I've learned is that recent optimization for SEO done on her site actually seemed to work. Maybe I should start writing about SEO...
I was surprised to see her site perform +327.5% better than other similar sized site in her verticle.
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