Why I stopped paying attention to Alexa follow this blog post

posted by David Manaster on Nov. 3, 2006

I was reading Michael Arrington's TechCrunch yesterday, and I saw this. It reminded me of a pet peeve of mine - just how far off Alexa's web site statistics can be. Since reading the piece, I have been watching the comments roll in with amusement.

As recently as a year ago, I relied on Alexa rankings to give me a broad view of web site traffic. I've touted the charts stats on this blog and put stock in them personally as a useful metric. I've used it for competitive analysis, and to tell apart the windbags from the companies that are the real deal.

(Does anyone else even remember Techies.com?)

It was always obvious that the stats were not exact, but I did have enough faith in the numbers to use them as a guide.

Recently, I have been I have seen enough bullshit numbers to convince me that the Alexa numbers are completely useless.

The other day, Jason Davis and I were talking about this very subject. As I?ve said before, Jason?s done a spectacular job with Recruiting.com, and Alexa tracks the rapid rise of the site.

However, Alexa currently shows that ERE.net and Recruiting.com have comparable levels of traffic. When Jason and I compared the actual number of page views on each using our server logs (Google Analytics for ERE vs. I am not sure what Jobster uses over there) ERE.net had nearly four times as many.

Alexaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Measuring the behavior of a small sample of Internet users who have downloaded a toolbar may have once been a decent way of measuring traffic, but it is clear to me that they are doing a disservice to the Internet community at this point.

There?s a great business opportunity out there for some entrepreneur to create an Alexa that actually works.

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•  Sean Rehder

  1 point 2 years ago

  If google analytics has nailed it...would people be willing to share those numbers?

  I've played with sitemeter.com on my blog...more or less for curiosity. What I like about that tool (it too could be way off, I'm not endorsing it) is that each blogger can give public access to the report if they so choose. I think those who give access choose to follow the "blogger's creed." For those who hide it...no secret blogger's handshake for you. ;)

  Anyways..I'd love to get a look at both ERE's and Recruiter.com's google analytics...or anyone's for that matter.

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•  Tracey De Morsella

  1 point 3 years ago

  Ditto:

  Most of us have come to the conclusion that alaxa is a joke, but I find it bewildering that there is no alternative. I've seen one or two knock-offs (compete.com), but they use the same flawed model. In addition to saavy web users being leary of toolbars, there are a million of them out there.

  Besides, getting audited, is there anything else?

  Tracey de Morsella http://www.multiculturaladvantage.net/diversity/

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•  Michael Turner

  1 point 3 years ago

  As a former 10-year VP at ComputerJobs.com who knows the IT audience very well, I argued for over seven years that Alexa stats were garbage -- maybe folks will start waking up to it soon.

  Asking IT or other Web savvy people to install a tool bar that monitors their navigation of the Web is a joke. IT people are all about anti-spyware, anti-big brother, etc. -- very few will install this thing. And measuring my mother, who will click just about anything if it says, "Click Here Now!" doesn't say much for accurate Web traffic analysis.

  Thanks for saying this!

  - MT

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