Anyone Still Using Alexa To Judge Traffic Levels?

Ive just been doing some traffic research for several of our adult and mainstream sites and really cant beleive how large the discrepencies in the Alexa reports are.

For example, we have one non-adult site that gets about 10 hits a day and, another that gets over 1000 hits a day, according to Alexa, the site that only gets 10 hits a day ranks much higher traffic wise than the larger trafficked site LOL

I realize Alexa only uses a snapshot of users with their toolbar installed but really, you'd figure they could at least get within a 10-20% margin of error :eek:

Is anyone else still using Alexa to judge traffic rank and, if so, have you noticed large discrepencies too in their reports compared to what your acual traffic levels are?

Regards,

Lee

I haven't used Alexa for ages. Even way back then when the internet was fun and the children didn't have computers it was never truly an accurate reflection on traffic to a site. No sense in getting the bp up over something that is so flawed. Still many do seem to swear by it, why I haven't a clue. :honest:

Yes, I use it to get an idea of traffic levels. Sure its not perfect, but its the only site that gives you an indication of traffic levels for almost any domain, and certainly all the more popular ones.

I think Alexa is only valuable for getting an idea of where you stand (assuming you operate honestly) vs other sites which you trust are also operating honestly.

I saw on another webmaster board recently outlandish claims of their Alexa rating. I checked their Alexa rating and it was true that they were ranked where they said they were, but it didn't add up. They would need 1,000 gay webmasters online on their site 24 hours a day all day using the Alexa toolbar in order to substantiate their claim.

That begs the question of how they do it. I'm not sure... Could it be, perhaps, something like: http://www.fakerank.com? Or how much would it cost to have an army of folks in the Phillipines install the toolbar and click around on your site all day? Less than you might think.

Our alexa rating is real and I know what are pageviews are, so I have an idea of how big a site needs to be to be in the rankings in the above 15,000 level.

So Alexa is valuable to me when I want to compare myself against another site that I know wouldn't stoop to manipulating results. But, I think there are some around who know how to play us... or at least try ;)

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Originally Posted by JustBryce

I saw on another webmaster board recently outlandish claims of their Alexa rating. I checked their Alexa rating and it was true that they were ranked where they said they were, but it didn't add up. They would need 1,000 gay webmasters online on their site 24 hours a day all day using the Alexa toolbar in order to substantiate their claim.

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Oh, I'm dying to know who you are talking about!

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Oh, I'm dying to know who you are talking about!

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Nevermind... I think I know who you are talking about. It's funny how they could have a higher rank than GWW with almost no postings or posters.

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Originally Posted by JustBryce

I saw on another webmaster board recently outlandish claims of their Alexa rating. I checked their Alexa rating and it was true that they were ranked where they said they were, but it didn't add up. They would need 1,000 gay webmasters online on their site 24 hours a day all day using the Alexa toolbar in order to substantiate their claim.

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Id be interested in a link babe if you could PM one to me ;)

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That begs the question of how they do it. I'm not sure... Could it be, perhaps, something like: http://www.fakerank.com? Or how much would it cost to have an army of folks in the Phillipines install the toolbar and click around on your site all day? Less than you might think.

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You know, thats an interesting site for sure. I wonder if it would be worth while getting a group of us on GWW together to see just how easy it actually is to manipulate Alexa? Would anyone be interested in this if i setup a stand-alone domain to give it a try?

We could probably get a valuable insight in to how others in the industry manipulate Alexa to suit their needs and id be more than happy to register a domain for this if it means we learn something :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

Not me hun, won't d/l the alexa toolbar... not sure if they've cleaned up their spyware either.

Yes, there are some who boast of their Alexa ranking as a sign of their importance/success....

personally i've put about as much trust in the accuracy of those rankings as those from some video rental top lists.

Interesting stuff..

I just did a little reseach and it seems that Alexa rank is open to a lot of exploits for site users to inflate their rankings which, to me, would mean that the details on their site are all but worthless.

On the plus side, if a site that shouldnt have a high rank, actually does, Alexa is a great way to show that they are less than trustworthy, especially if they are touting their 'ranking' as something positive to other people :eek:

Anyway, here's a nice thread i found on a mainstream webmaster board listing a few ways in which Alexa can be manipulated by less than honest site owners...

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=33967

That thread is really an eye opener :eek:

Regards,

Lee

Yeah, I sort of use it as a very general gauge taken with a huge grain of salt. lol

not me. i checked a few larger gay link sites and some that have about a zillion hard recip links out there and masses of traffic were listed lower than the smallest free sites.

i think alexa has some issues *lol*

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Originally Posted by JustBryce

I saw on another webmaster board recently outlandish claims of their Alexa rating. I checked their Alexa rating and it was true that they were ranked where they said they were, but it didn't add up. They would need 1,000 gay webmasters online on their site 24 hours a day all day using the Alexa toolbar in order to substantiate their claim.

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HAHAHAHA...

Dont worry about finding a link, i just saw it for myself LOL

Interesting numbers indeed, guess there are a lot of scammers in the adult industry after all.. The sad thing is, webmasters who dont know any better, will beleive their outlandish claims :(

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Nevermind... I think I know who you are talking about. It's funny how they could have a higher rank than GWW with almost no postings or posters.

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I think JustBryce means the JRL Communications media empire....

Steve

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Originally Posted by desslock

I think JustBryce means the JRL Communications media empire....

Steve

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You mean that publication that puts out the cleverly worded, beautifully designed, statistically accurate, totally unassuming, and completely unbiased weekly newsletter that takes me 2 days to open in my mail client using a hi speed connection?

That one?

Meh.

I've tried to understand how our membership can quadruple in the last year, our page views can septuple and our traffic can dectuple but our Alexa rating just goes up about double. I compare our traffic to the last site I worked for and see that their hills and valleys kinda match up.. when we have a spike, they have a spike, when we have a drop, they have a drop.

It's maybe a vague idea, but it's best to take a look a the 1 year look and not worry about the daily traffic.

It's also best to not worry about how much other people are making and look at your own bottom line... you have the members, you have the traffic, you have the revenue, then you just be happy and stop trying to positively comapre yourself to others...

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Originally Posted by Jasun

I've tried to understand how our membership can quadruple in the last year, our page views can septuple and our traffic can dectuple but our Alexa rating just goes up about double.

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That's probably because your site is moving into a new tier of competition. I don't imagine it is a linear formula that determines ranking. As you move higher up the ladder, you are fighting it out with other sites with similar traffic levels and it becomes more difficult to advance.

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

That's probably because your site is moving into a new tier of competition. I don't imagine it is a linear formula that determines ranking. As you move higher up the ladder, you are fighting it out with other sites with similar traffic levels and it becomes more difficult to advance.

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Thats exactly what it is Jim.

Unless you know how to 'inflate' the Alexa rankings of course, then you appear to have a lot more traffic than sites that are actually much larger and more popular than your own.

Common sense more than anything dictates that the higher up the Alexa rankings you go, the harder it is going to be to improve them, actually, thats pretty much the same for most things relating to web traffic.

Regards,

Lee