In a Business Insider article published last week, a calculation that Ross Sandler had published created much buzz on the Interwebs. He claimed that Facebook now brings Google 19% of it’s unique visitors — more than ever. Good point, and of course when I read that it took me back. At the same time, it also sounded unrealistic.

In a more recent article, Rob Go questions the analysis, explaining that 19% of uniques coming from Facebook to Google means that each Facebook user goes to a Google search at least once a month — not impressive at all right? He also makes the point that Facebook isn’t literally driving users to a Google search, it just so happens that they navigate to Google after viewing pages on Facebook. It seems like Facebook may prompt or persuade a user into starting a new Google search, but it’s certainly not DRIVING uniques.

I’m not going to bore you with data that’s presented in both articles, I just wanted to point out how easy it is for one to misinterpret metrics, even by professionals who do this sort of stuff for a living. Numbers can be exciting, but not if they’re misleading..