Your metric grew 50% year over year, an absolute change of 50,000. YoY compares the same period a year apart, so seasonal swings cancel out and you see the real trend.
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Year over year growth measures how much a metric has changed compared with the same period 12 months earlier. The formula is simple: (this year minus last year) divided by last year, times 100. If you had 100,000 organic visits last year and 150,000 this year, your YoY growth is 50%. The calculator above runs that math instantly, and adds a CAGR view when you compare more than two years.
Take your current value, subtract the value from the same period one year ago, divide the result by that prior value, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. Written out: (this year minus last year) / last year x 100.
Worked example: revenue of $80,000 last year and $96,000 this year gives (96,000 minus 80,000) / 80,000 x 100, which is 20% YoY growth. The absolute change is $16,000. Keep the units identical on both inputs, dollars with dollars or visits with visits, or the percentage will not mean anything.
Month over month (MoM) compares two consecutive months and is useful for spotting fast changes, but it is noisy because seasonal patterns make December look nothing like January. Year over year compares the same month or quarter one year apart, so it strips seasonality out and shows the underlying trend. CAGR, the compound annual growth rate, takes a starting value and an ending value several years apart and returns the single steady rate that would connect them, smoothing the volatile years into one clean number. Reach for MoM to watch momentum week to week, YoY to judge the latest year fairly, and CAGR when you want the average pace over three years or more.
YoY growth is the cleanest read on whether something is actually working, because it removes the seasonality that distorts shorter comparisons. A retailer always spikes in December and dips in January, so comparing those two months tells you nothing. Comparing this December with last December tells you everything. The same logic applies to organic search: traffic ebbs and flows with seasons and search trends, so YoY is how you separate a real upward trend from a seasonal blip. When YoY growth stays positive and compounds year after year, you have the signal that matters. For a clearer picture of where your own YoY traffic trend is heading and what is driving it, request a free SEO audit and we will break it down with your real data.
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