johnchow.com— Alexa is a total sham because their statistics are based on the behavior of (and easily manipulated by) the users who are foolish enough to install their eponymous toolbar.
Sep 29, 2006View in Crawl 4
Way to game the system dude. Congratulations on having one of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet...so I wonder how hard it will be for you to unseat digg itself.
Except that statisticians wouldn't refer to Alexa as a best Known Predictors.There is nothing scientific about the way Alexa gathers data. True statisticians wouldn't touch it.
you don't have to use Alexa's toolbar. You can use Amazon's and it will also contribute to Alexa's rankings. I think there are others that do it as well...
It seems Mr. Chow doesn’t really get it.. “NOBODY” i know can make alexa’s “reach” parameter go from “83″ to “1200″ by trying to fool alexa. You can get that because of a digg spike, and a whole lot of other things (slashdotting, massive ad campaigns, viral campaigns) etc.etc. but saying you can cheat alexa en-masse is just foolish.I administer more than 1200 machines across seven different locations, and control three of the top 5,000 domains on the internet. We tried to raise our alexa ranking (reach and pageviews) by getting “ALL” desktops to install alexa and browse the sites.. we couldn’t make more than 10% of a difference, no matter what we tried…Alexa maybe inaccurate enough to be fooled by hordes at sub-30K traffic rank levels, but at larger traffic rank levels, it’s nearly impossible to mask your real traffic data..Mr. Chow should appreciate his day on Digg, and learn to appreciate the fact that “all surveys” are fundamentally flawed, and though alexa may not be “perfect”, it’s the best thing out there to gauge traffic yet… I’ve seen real data from Comscore Matrix et.al, and it doesn’t even come close in accuracy to what Alexa does.
"Alexa is a total sham because their statistics are based on the behavior of (and easily manipulated by) the users who are foolish enough to install their eponymous toolbar."Uh... NO s**t?
who doesn't know this... especially running a Mac related site, the Alexa rankings are a joke.. Not many people with IE and the installed Alexa toolbar visit. It's ridiculous.... who trusts Alexa.
paniqueSep 29, 2006
Way to game the system dude. Congratulations on having one of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet...so I wonder how hard it will be for you to unseat digg itself.
Closed AccountSep 29, 2006
Except that statisticians wouldn't refer to Alexa as a best Known Predictors.There is nothing scientific about the way Alexa gathers data. True statisticians wouldn't touch it.
longofestSep 29, 2006
you don't have to use Alexa's toolbar. You can use Amazon's and it will also contribute to Alexa's rankings. I think there are others that do it as well...
moderndiva11Sep 29, 2006
It seems Mr. Chow doesn’t really get it.. “NOBODY” i know can make alexa’s “reach” parameter go from “83″ to “1200″ by trying to fool alexa. You can get that because of a digg spike, and a whole lot of other things (slashdotting, massive ad campaigns, viral campaigns) etc.etc. but saying you can cheat alexa en-masse is just foolish.I administer more than 1200 machines across seven different locations, and control three of the top 5,000 domains on the internet. We tried to raise our alexa ranking (reach and pageviews) by getting “ALL” desktops to install alexa and browse the sites.. we couldn’t make more than 10% of a difference, no matter what we tried…Alexa maybe inaccurate enough to be fooled by hordes at sub-30K traffic rank levels, but at larger traffic rank levels, it’s nearly impossible to mask your real traffic data..Mr. Chow should appreciate his day on Digg, and learn to appreciate the fact that “all surveys” are fundamentally flawed, and though alexa may not be “perfect”, it’s the best thing out there to gauge traffic yet… I’ve seen real data from Comscore Matrix et.al, and it doesn’t even come close in accuracy to what Alexa does.
Closed AccountSep 29, 2006
"Alexa is a total sham because their statistics are based on the behavior of (and easily manipulated by) the users who are foolish enough to install their eponymous toolbar."Uh... NO s**t?
mike503Sep 29, 2006
this isn't news.this is common sense.bury.
obkenobiSep 29, 2006
I do. I have Adsense and a bunch of others blocked too. That's in addition to Adblock.
obkenobiSep 29, 2006
Alexa is classified as spyware by most spyware cleaners.
onestepSep 29, 2006
who doesn't know this... especially running a Mac related site, the Alexa rankings are a joke.. Not many people with IE and the installed Alexa toolbar visit. It's ridiculous.... who trusts Alexa.
thinkboxSep 30, 2006
Sorry ^ It not I"It will go the way of AOL"
slackorSep 30, 2006
Clueless herd ranks Digg at #88.
ostermayerSep 30, 2006
Is it just me or is the alexa page always down. I continually get image cannot be displayed errors.