Confused about Alexa

[Marc]

I looked up a site on alexa, and it has the totally wrong snapshot of my site on it:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=freshloads.com
that picture looks like a japanese site or something. not at all mine.

was my site hijacked or something and i dont know about it?
Its just weird, maybe some traffic is being redirected and I dont know about it.

any ideas?

[Lee]

Its possible they just fucked up.

Given that more than half of the data Alexa uses is pulled out of thin air i wouldnt be surprised if that was the case

Regards,

Lee

[mikexod]

I used to be a strong believer of Alexa rating...that was when I found out about the site.

Right now I understand it and I wouldn't trust any numbers that they post. The website screen shot is just their screw up and nothing else.

[Dzinerbear]

Lee, I'm interested in your "pulled out of thin air" comment. Can you elaborate? Or is there some place I can go to read more about Alexa.

Todd's big on Alexa right now because it's one of the few places that gives any kind of numbers. We know it's fucked up, but he's thinking it's better than nothing.

Are there other places that give the kind of information Alexa does?

Thanks
Michael

[Xstr8guy]

Alexa should have a disclaimer; "For amusement purposes only"

[Mindy]

Is it better than nothing? I guess. It is something. But you have to have an alexa tool bar to be counted. How many surfers have an alexa tool bar???? I look at it as a point of reference a way to get general information about a company. I like to see how many sites link to them and I am not even sure if that info is accuate.

Just know what you are dealing with. I can go there on days when sales are slow and our rating was good and then go there on banner sales days and have a worse rating.

You cant win any way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Xstr8guy]

I find when I'm adding galleries to my tgp or editing descriptions my ranking goes way up. I think VERY few surfers have the tollbar, so one person clicking on a site can change things radically.

D-bear, try this... Install the toolbar and click on one of your sites a bunch of times. Don't do it on the same page... bounce around from page to page and see if your ranking goes up.

[desslock]

Alexa measures the number of times people with the Alexa toolbar on their own computer visits your sites. That ranking means absolutely nothing.

If you are looking at numbers, I suggest that studying your own stats, particularly number of page views and unique visitors. Look at the refferal URLs and the search terms people are typing in to reach you.

Nobody uses the Alexa toolbar. One good reason: it sucks. If Amazon were not subsidizing Alexa to keep it going, it would probably whither immediately.

If you think Google PageRank means nothing, then an Alexa ranking falls into the "below sub-nothing" category.

Steve

[willwest]

Alexa offers a couple of easy methods to update your site thumbnail image.

Method One:
(1) Enter your domain in the web search field at http://info.alexa.com/
(2) Scroll down to bottom of your site info page and select the "Correct errors and omissions in this listing" link.
(3) Select "Update Thumbnail Image" link.
(4) Alexa will then update the site thumbnail image file within 48 hours.

Method Two:
According to Alexa's FAQ you can request their crawler to refresh your site image.

I've used both methods on several sites and actually prefer the first one. I hope that info helps.

[Marc]

Originally posted by willwest

Method One:
(1) Enter your domain in the web search field at http://info.alexa.com/
(2) Scroll down to bottom of your site info page and select the "Correct errors and omissions in this listing" link.
(3) Select "Update Thumbnail Image" link.
(4) Alexa will then update the site thumbnail image file within 48 hours.

thanks man, just did that now so we'll see in 48 hours.
Btw I didnt know you posted here, youre one of my favorite pornstars.
Love your work, your movies are great.

[Xstr8guy]

Originally posted by Marc
thanks man, just did that now so we'll see in 48 hours.
Btw I didnt know you posted here, youre one of my favorite pornstars.
Love your work, your movies are great.

He also has the nicest porn star site i've ever seen

[Dzinerbear]

And he's a nice guy.


dzinerbear

[DrewG]

Will West = good stuff

but back to the thread...

so clearly Alexa is not a totally reliable source of information. Basically its sample population are all internet professionals, mostly marketing type people. on the other hand, people who work on the internet tend to use it alot, so maybe its a pretty representative sample.??

my take on Alexa is that it is reliable to an order of magnitude - all the sites it lists in the top 10 really are around the top 10. Same for top 100, 1000, etc...

Does anybody know any other reliable stats? anybody every use nielsen net ratings?

[Dzinerbear]

Okay, so the big question is: If Alexa is so unreliable, is there anything else out there that's more reliable?

Cheers
Dzinerbear

[willwest]

Ahh shucks...thanks Marc and Xstr8guy for your comments.

For the record, most of the credit for my WillWest.com site design goes to the talented Mr. Xstr8guy himself.

As for Alexa though, I use it as a high level sort of traffic indicator to compare sites.

When I used to work for HDK and started up MakingGayPorn.com, we looked at Alexa rankings especially while considering link exchanges. I was amazed at the surprising number of sites attempting to sell ad space to us when their traffic ranking was not significantly better than ours.

I consider Alexa traffic indicators simply as a supplement to other sources. Alexa should not be considered as a replacement more specific and accurate traffic reports for our sites on our respective host servers.