Alexa

Why, why and why?

[edit_g]

Nigh on every post about Alexa is prefaced with "we all know how inaccurate Alexa is, so no need to debate that, but..."

Why? If we all know how inaccurate it is, why do we care if we see no data in the display, an abnormaly high ranking or an abnormaly low ranking. We all know that Alexa data is useless and that we shouldn't consider it business information - so why do people keep going on about it?

[deejay]

Because in a business where we all best guess, second guess, guesstimate and generally clutch at straws without, for the most part, concrete evidence.... here is something visible, solid, as close to tangible as we get.

Once in a while it's just plain nice to be able to say "IS", as in "my Alexa ranking is"... rather than I believe, or I think or in my estimation.....

[edit_g]

than I believe, or I think or in my estimation.....

But that's what you get with Alexa - you get a guess - not just a guess - but a badly educated and shoddily researched spyware laden one. What's the point? Why not just pluck a figure out of thin air?

[edited spelling]

[deejay]

:) Yeah, but 101,795 or 5,980 sounds a lot less guessy.

And it's their guess, not ours.. and they, after all, are the search engine.... I was going to say gods, but who are we talking about here - demi-gods might even be overstating. Hemi-demi-gods?

I really believe the reaction to Alexa in general is about a feel-good factor that comes from having something that appears 'solid' to evaluate yourself and others against.

It doesn't matter how full of holes it is - people are going to cling to it for dear life until something better comes along. And we know from history that there is a group of people who will still cling to it even after something better is available.

[Visit Thailand]

We may know it is quite irrelevant but others may not, and when you hear clients tell you your site only has a ranking of X,XXX but your competitors site is a whopping XXX then you start to wonder.

Also I have found the toolbar quite useful for blocking pop ups (more so that Y and G's).

So the stats may be misleading but I do like to see where I am in comparison to a competitor because I know some of my advertisers use that as a comparison tool (one of many but a tool all the same).

[jusdrum]

I only care about the Alexa rankings as a number to tell srubborn clients (my smart clients trust me that it doesn't matter). On my own projects, I don't even check.

[Macro]

edit_g, I beg to differ. It serves a lot of useful purposes.

1. It's associated with the Wayback archive and I do use that when doing due diligence on sites I intend buying
2. It's toolbar is useful in finding "similar sites". I found a lot of cool sites that are not in Google.
3. When someone calls selling me ad space and says he's getting 5 million webmasters a month coming to his site and I see his Alexa rank is 1,500,000 I just know he's full of s*it, and I tell him so ;)

It's useless for most other stuff of course, it's easy to manipulate your rankings upwards (only), Alexa doesn't come around as often as it should do so it shows my home page as it was two years ago... and it has several other problems. But, it's a useful tool, in combination with others if you know how to use it and are aware of the limitations.

I would use it even if it's sole advantage is that it can only be manipulated one way to improve your rank and not reduce it :)

[edit_g]

Ok - I can sort of see what you guys mean about clients bringing it up. But - when this has happened to me I try to educate them. I show them adwords listings for tools to increase their alexa rank and I explain to them how it works. Then, I explain how it is supposed to be done (hitwise, etc) and why they should not rely on Alexa. I've never had anybody second guess this.

Wayback - I hear what you're saying. Wayback is great (when it works) but I keep archive.org in my favourites.

Similar sites - sure - but that's a justification for the toolbar, not the ranking system.

Ad space - when somebody calls me wanting to sell me 50,000 pw's targeted ad space I hang up. I have yet to need the Alexa toolbar to tell me that those types are full of manure. ;)

I'm being very sarky here on purpose (sorry) - but I still say that I haven't heard one justifiable (to me) use for the damned Alexa system.

[Macro]

but I still say that I haven't heard one justifiable (to me) use for the damned Alexa system

Don't use it then ;)

Your original question was why people go on about it. The answer is that it matters to some people, some people find it useful, that's why they "go on about it" :)

[edit_g]

Don't use it then

Your original question was why people go on about it. The answer is that it matters to some people, some people find it useful, that's why they "go on about it"

I don't use it, so that's fine. :)

Ok, I'll be quiet now - but - I'll reserve the right to jump straight into any thread where Alexa is mentioned and qualify any data as BS. ;)

[Macro]

I'll reserve the right to jump straight into any thread where Alexa is mentioned and qualify any data as BS

Unless I beat you to it.

[ronin]

We may know it is quite irrelevant but others may not

Visit Thailand hits the nail on the head - people with a little knowledge are dangerous people. It's probably better that they don't use Alexa and find out that you're the "three millionth most popular website in the world", when really you're the third largest in your industry and you have a lot of clients who have never heard of the Alexa toolbar.

Incidentally how does Hitwise go about compiling its statistics?

[HughMungus]

If you visited a website that wanted to sell you something, would you trust a site with an Alexa ranking in the millions more or one with an Alexa ranking in the thousands more? I'd choose the latter, myself.

[edit_g]

Incidentally how does Hitwise go about compiling its statistics?

Hitwise sign contracts with big ISP's to monitor their traffic and display the results. In the UK for example, they use the data of 3 of the first-tier isp's.

Damn, 1000 posts. :)

[random2]

For every trick there is someone who comes out with a way to cheat the system. Alexa boosters are on the rise and I am wondering when or if Alexa will ever develop a system to prevent the fake rankings. Ebay is full of sites selling a script or software that will boost your ranking on Alexa within a month. Proxy-server based, these "fake" hits can easily fool Alexa into thinking your site is "hot" when it's actually "not" - Kind of like the American Idol show! (pun intended).
Every time I log onto to ebay, there is someone there selling an alexa booster turnkey web site - and they get the money for it! Amazing how there is a sucker for everything in this world. The software usually sells for $29-$34 and the script usually sells for $75-$115! - it's simply a proxy PHP script!
While there are some indirect benefits of running such a script, I am wondering if Alexa will ever develop a way to tell fake hits from real ones. The only way I can think of is by "timing" as both the software and the script seem to load "fake visitors" every second or so...in a real site, I doubt you'd get that many visitors every second unless yours is a BIG, heavy traffic site.