How the ScentRadar charts are made

Where the numbers come from

Five signals feed the perfume ranking. A signal only counts in a period when enough perfumes reach its minimum (see below); the table shows which ones are active now.

• European search interest active
  Impressions and clicks in Google Search from visitors in Europe on the product pages of the FragranceGems storefronts (Search Console), and on the perfume pages of scentradar.eu once they have data. A click counts ten times an impression.
• Waiting lists active
  New sign-ups per perfume to the "notify me when it is back" lists at FragranceGems during the period (all sizes together).
• Orders active
  The number of orders with the perfume (any size) delivered to a European address, without test and cancelled orders. Orders, not bottles: one large order counts once.
• ScentRadar searches starts when enough readers take part
  What readers search for on scentradar.eu, counted anonymously per day (see privacy below). A term counts at most 20 times a day, so nobody can lift a perfume by searching for it again and again.
• ScentRadar readers starts when enough readers take part
  Votes on longevity and sillage, additions to lists, follows in My radar and published impressions per perfume.

Releases

A release is a perfume the house itself listed in the period. We show releases as a fact next to the charts; they do not add points. A house that lists more than 25 (months) / 12 (weeks) perfumes in one period is treated as a catalogue import, not as a release rhythm, and is left out of the release counts.

How a perfume is scored

For every signal we rank the perfumes that reach the minimum and convert the rank to a percentile (0 to 1; equal values share the average rank). Percentiles instead of raw counts mean that one spike or one bulk order cannot dominate, and that no absolute figure can be read back from the chart.

The score is the weighted sum of the percentiles divided by the sum of the weights of the signals that are active in the period. A perfume needs at least 2 active signals to be ranked. Ties are broken by search interest and then alphabetically. The interest index scales the first place to 100.

Weights and minimums

Minimums are in counts per period: Search interest in points (impressions plus ten times clicks), the others in sign-ups, orders, searches or reader actions. A signal with fewer than 8 perfumes above its minimum is switched off for that period and the other weights are scaled up.

Notes and houses

Every ranked perfume hands out its score over its notes (and to its house). The share of a note or house is its part of all points in the period. Trending notes and rising houses are ranked by the change of that share compared with the previous period, softened by the median share so that small names do not jump to the top. The trend is shown in words, not as a percentage.

A note needs at least 3 ranked perfumes and a share of at least 0%; a house at least 3 ranked perfumes and a share of at least 0%. A list of risers is published only when at least 5 notes or 3 houses clearly rise; otherwise we show the level only.

When enough ScentRadar searches and follows exist in both periods, 20% of a note's or house's share comes from them; before that the share comes from the perfume scores alone.

What we do not publish

No absolute FragranceGems figures: no revenue, no number of orders, no number of sign-ups. We publish rank order, the interest index and words. A signal below its minimum is treated as absent, so a single customer can never be recognised in a chart.

Protection against manipulation

Percentile scoring, minimums, the daily cap per search term, same-origin checks and rate limits on the search counter, moderation of reader impressions and a filter that rejects names of other houses make it hard to push a perfume up. We cannot rule out every attempt; completed charts are frozen after review.

Privacy of the search counter

When someone searches on scentradar.eu the page sends the search term, the number of results and the page language to us after a short pause. We store only the term (lower case, 3 to 40 characters, no numbers, links or names of other houses) with a daily counter. We store no IP address, no cookie and no user. To stop floods, an edge cache holds a one-way hash for 60 seconds; it is never written to our database. Terms older than 120 days are deleted.

Limits you should know about

The charts describe the interest we can see: visitors and customers of FragranceGems and readers of ScentRadar. They are not a survey of the whole European market, and they cover only the houses ScentRadar follows.

FragranceGems is the publisher of ScentRadar and sells some of these perfumes. That is why we publish rank order only, why the method is open, and why orders are only one of five signals, counted as a percentile like the rest.

Early charts rest on fewer signals (see the table) and on small numbers. Running charts change daily; a chart is final three days after its period ends, because Search Console data arrives with a delay.

Updates and corrections

Running charts update every night. Completed months and weeks are frozen. Found a mistake? Write to us via the contact page and we will correct it and note it here.

Using the charts

You may quote the text, the rank order and the images with a link to the chart page. Each period has a press summary and share images, and the rank order can be downloaded as CSV.