Comments on: What’s wrong with Alexa? http://techbusiness.com.au/whats-wrong-with-alexa/ KEYWORDS: technology - business - research - online surveys - Australia Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:11:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: admin http://techbusiness.com.au/whats-wrong-with-alexa/comment-page-1/#comment-17 admin Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:11:23 +0000 http://techbusiness.com.au/?p=34#comment-17 See our updating notes (bottom of article) where Alexa's Help pages posted in July 2009 acknowledged that the traffic rankings beyond 100,000 are not statistically meaningful. See our updating notes (bottom of article) where Alexa’s Help pages posted in July 2009 acknowledged that the traffic rankings beyond 100,000 are not statistically meaningful.

]]> By: admin http://techbusiness.com.au/whats-wrong-with-alexa/comment-page-1/#comment-14 admin Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:30:43 +0000 http://techbusiness.com.au/?p=34#comment-14 dIFLY - Thanks for the comments. Yes, we know that the 12+ million ranking is very low. And we know that the #1 spot (which is the highest) is a struggle between Google and Yahoo these days. And we know too that the flaw in Alexa's is that it is biased towards users who are using the Alexa toolbar which as you mentioned are only few these days. Having said that, the question still remains: How does Alexa calculate its numbers? For example, as of to date, 3.11.09, SHOWCASEPAGE.NET has an Alexa traffic ranking of 2,503,250 --- a big jump from the lowly 12+ million ranking. How was this number calculated? Based on our own analytics, the site did not register that much traffic during the period to be able to achieve that big improvement. No, we are not complaining. Why should we? Regarding your suggestion to ignore Alexa's because it is flawed, much to our desire to do that, unfortunately it still remains a site-popularity indicator in the eyes of advertisers and online ads buyers. Until such time the industry comes up with an alternative solution, it would be prudent for us to live with Alexa's traffic ranking system without necessarily relying on it solely to measure site performances. dIFLY – Thanks for the comments.

Yes, we know that the 12+ million ranking is very low. And we know that the #1 spot (which is the highest) is a struggle between Google and Yahoo these days. And we know too that the flaw in Alexa’s is that it is biased towards users who are using the Alexa toolbar which as you mentioned are only few these days.

Having said that, the question still remains: How does Alexa calculate its numbers? For example, as of to date, 3.11.09, SHOWCASEPAGE.NET has an Alexa traffic ranking of 2,503,250 — a big jump from the lowly 12+ million ranking. How was this number calculated? Based on our own analytics, the site did not register that much traffic during the period to be able to achieve that big improvement. No, we are not complaining. Why should we?

Regarding your suggestion to ignore Alexa’s because it is flawed, much to our desire to do that, unfortunately it still remains a site-popularity indicator in the eyes of advertisers and online ads buyers. Until such time the industry comes up with an alternative solution, it would be prudent for us to live with Alexa’s traffic ranking system without necessarily relying on it solely to measure site performances.

]]> By: dIFLY http://techbusiness.com.au/whats-wrong-with-alexa/comment-page-1/#comment-13 dIFLY Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:31:56 +0000 http://techbusiness.com.au/?p=34#comment-13 Firstly, the Alexa score, 12,126,403, is actually very low as Alexa works with 1 being the highest. Secondly, the reason that Alexa is so flawed is that they primarily take their data from people who are surfing the web using the Alexa toolbar (which is probably quite a low number now a days as if people are going to use a toolbar they are more likely to opt for Google or some Firefox plugin.). With these points in mind, I would ignore any information you get from Alexa and use your own analytics package for a more accurate depiction of traffic to your site. Firstly, the Alexa score, 12,126,403, is actually very low as Alexa works with 1 being the highest.
Secondly, the reason that Alexa is so flawed is that they primarily take their data from people who are surfing the web using the Alexa toolbar (which is probably quite a low number now a days as if people are going to use a toolbar they are more likely to opt for Google or some Firefox plugin.).
With these points in mind, I would ignore any information you get from Alexa and use your own analytics package for a more accurate depiction of traffic to your site.

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