Comments on: What is Wrong With Alexa Traffic Ranking? http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html Random thoughts and news by Andrew Chen and friends Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:10:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Foam Roofing http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-60106 Foam Roofing Fri, 15 May 2009 11:02:18 +0000 http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-60106 How can I say this plainly. As a student of statistics, it's simple. Bad sample = Bad Data. Period. If that's too hard to understand, then maybe even finger painting, explaining it really slow still wont help. Alexa has a biased sample, so the results are biased. Period. Alexa data is only valid for the alexa community. They clearly have a data sample that does NOT match the rest of the world. The author of this blog is right. The data they present is no good, unless you're just interested in analyzing the Alexa community, or getting ranked high in their community. You can be #1 on google, but no where to be seen on Alexa. It happened to me with serveral of my own sites. These are big businesses, with big traffic, and millions in revenue. Anyway, I'm making this comment because the author's statement is astute, and poignant. You people that claim Alexa is accurate as a representation of the world need to pull your head out of whatever hole you're stuck in.... How can I say this plainly.

As a student of statistics, it’s simple.

Bad sample = Bad Data.

Period.

If that’s too hard to understand, then maybe even finger painting, explaining it really slow still wont help.

Alexa has a biased sample, so the results are biased. Period.

Alexa data is only valid for the alexa community. They clearly have a data sample that does NOT match the rest of the world.

The author of this blog is right. The data they present is no good, unless you’re just interested in analyzing the Alexa community, or getting ranked high in their community. You can be #1 on google, but no where to be seen on Alexa. It happened to me with serveral of my own sites. These are big businesses, with big traffic, and millions in revenue.

Anyway, I’m making this comment because the author’s statement is astute, and poignant. You people that claim Alexa is accurate as a representation of the world need to pull your head out of whatever hole you’re stuck in….

]]> By: Coofer Cat http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-57308 Coofer Cat Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:13:13 +0000 http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-57308 I too am very confused by Alexa's rankings. I found this out when using the Pralexa feature of Drupal's Weblinks module. I found that I (www.coofercat.com) have an Alexa traffic rank of about 1.9 million. I have no idea if that's good or bad, so I compared against a couple of major websites. It seems my little 'blog, running on the end of my domestic broadband connections outstrips slashdot.org (traffic rank: 939) and bbc.co.uk (traffic rank: 44). Whilst I'm not sure about your comparisons to/from local.com, I'm absolutely sure the BBC pulls more traffic than Coofer Cat (although of course, I would love the reverse to be true ;-) I see here: http://awis.blogspot.com/2008/04/alexa-ranking-system-has-been-changed.html that they state "it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community", so I guess the Alexa community prefers coofercat.com to the BBC and slashdot. Sadly, it seems thats about all Alexa can tell me though. I too am very confused by Alexa’s rankings. I found this out when using the Pralexa feature of Drupal’s Weblinks module.

I found that I (www.coofercat.com) have an Alexa traffic rank of about 1.9 million. I have no idea if that’s good or bad, so I compared against a couple of major websites. It seems my little ‘blog, running on the end of my domestic broadband connections outstrips slashdot.org (traffic rank: 939) and bbc.co.uk (traffic rank: 44).

Whilst I’m not sure about your comparisons to/from local.com, I’m absolutely sure the BBC pulls more traffic than Coofer Cat (although of course, I would love the reverse to be true ;-)

I see here: http://awis.blogspot.com/2008/04/alexa-ranking-system-has-been-changed.html that they state “it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community”, so I guess the Alexa community prefers coofercat.com to the BBC and slashdot. Sadly, it seems thats about all Alexa can tell me though.

]]> By: big disk http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-7169 big disk Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:22:31 +0000 http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-7169 HE HE! :shock: HE HE! :shock:

]]> By: 5 Ways to Get Your CEO/CMO/VP of Marketing to Stop Talking About Alexa | Dairies Around The World http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-3895 5 Ways to Get Your CEO/CMO/VP of Marketing to Stop Talking About Alexa | Dairies Around The World Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:04:39 +0000 http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-3895 [...] started working on our Alexa ranking a few months ago until I read about how flawed their data is. Alexa admits that their data is far from perfect, and does not seem to have anything in the [...] […] started working on our Alexa ranking a few months ago until I read about how flawed their data is. Alexa admits that their data is far from perfect, and does not seem to have anything in the […]

]]> By: Andrew Chen http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-21 Andrew Chen Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:48:36 +0000 http://www.siusic.com/wphchen/what-is-wrong-with-alexa-traffic-ranking-41.html#comment-21 I am pretty sure Local.com is only couting the traffic to the page the company host becuase these add on services, oodle.com, indeed.com and whitepages.com were not there at the time when the financial report released. Take a step back treat the 10 million as page views and compare to JohnChow.com's 184,640 page views it is still a difference of 50 times. How much better Alexa looks like? It still spells something very wrong with Alexa, either in its ranking algorithm or in its sampling base. I am pretty sure Local.com is only couting the traffic to the page the company host becuase these add on services, oodle.com, indeed.com and whitepages.com were not there at the time when the financial report released.

Take a step back treat the 10 million as page views and compare to JohnChow.com’s 184,640 page views it is still a difference of 50 times. How much better Alexa looks like? It still spells something very wrong with Alexa, either in its ranking algorithm or in its sampling base.

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