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98 Comments
- PatrickA, on 10/10/2007, -4/+81Alexa doesn't just measure page views, they factor in the amount of time spent on the site.
Youtube users browse loads of pages looking at videos. Google users look at one page and quickly navigate away. Even people using Gmail and other services don't add up to many page views as everything is done using AJAX. Also Google has so many subdomains and country specific sites it's Alexa ranking is diluted.
@publicXuse - Alexa won't count embedded Flash videos as page views. - wiifm69, on 10/10/2007, -10/+84what about the 38 billion people that have www.google.com (or variants) as their homepage.
- publicXuse, on 10/10/2007, -12/+76How can it not be true? I mean today for example. I visited google 2 times. I visisted youtube 22 times through other sites that I visit that have their videos on youtube. How about the people that have yahoo, clusty or ask.com I am sure they some how end up on youtube.
- GunbladeVIII, on 10/10/2007, -2/+46Well, then there's that whole Google = YouTube (via owning it), so I doubt Google much cares which one you visit...
- Lunarbunny, on 10/10/2007, -2/+41I guess you haven't been introduced to our friend, hyperbole.
- WarpFox, on 10/10/2007, -0/+38Could this possibly be the video responsible for youtube's increased page views?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 - pjs1840, on 10/10/2007, -2/+38I've been saying it for years that Google needs to come out with a public traffic ranking system to finally crush Alexa. (Not PageRank, totally different) Alexa gets their traffic ranking data from a very small percentage of the population who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Not only is it a tiny percentage of Internet users, but the results are even more skewed because while some of the people who have the toolbar are clueless idiots who don't know any better, the majority are webmasters trying to boost the Alexa score of their own site. The Alexa system is easily gamed, yet it's remained the benchmark for website popularity because it's the only public traffic ranking system that most people know about. Recently, there's been other systems emerging like Compete.com that determine their rankings from multiple sources like ISP data etc and ultimately should prove to be more accurate than Alexa, but it's still not entirely accurate.
Which is why Google should release their version of Alexa. Their version could get their data from all the websites that have Adsense and/or Analytics installed, search queries on Google and its partner engines, quantity of backlinks (utilizing their outdated PageRank system), the Google toolbar, and on and on. I'm surprised they haven't released something like this yet but I'm hoping something like it is already in the works. Surely they're amassing all this personal data for some good reason, right? Right guys, right?! - shorty9, on 10/10/2007, -6/+40Alexa is *****. I shudder when I see "industry experts" relying on its data.
- gregdogum, on 10/10/2007, -3/+34The way Alexa does it's ratings is so flawed anyhow. Why should anyone or would anyone visit a site that claims to know the traffic patterns of websites when the way it does its rankings is through its toolbar program. Honestly, who here has that crap? If you don't, how the hell does Alexa know what you're visiting. Alexa is flawed.
- carguy84, on 10/10/2007, -3/+20"And it shows just how useless Alexa has become as a method for measuring web traffic and reach."
More like "And this just shows how useless TechCrunch is, as Alexa has NEVER been a useful tool for measuring web traffic and reach" - GliTCH82, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16Son of a bitch, not again!
- poptones, on 10/10/2007, -3/+16I agree with you, godamit.
- Myonosken, on 10/10/2007, -3/+14It's ***** hyperbole. You're the ***** retard.
- PatrickBrown, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12"I think it just upsets the google fan boys."
That doesn't make sense either by your logic. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12Rick rolled!
- NiX0n, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11The people constantly viewing YouTube are probably the same morons... err... users who don't know how to uninstall Alexa.
- BuryIt, on 10/10/2007, -11/+18The population of the world is 6.6 billion.
- celeb, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8"Alexa Is Useless." This is new news?
- brundlefly76, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Yeah I don't know that its necessarily untrue at all - YouTube is an extremely sticky site, Google is not - its frequently accessed, but not sticky. The user's goal on Google is to get *off* of Google and onto the site s/he was looking for.
I jump on Google, get my link after a page or 3 and Im gone for an hour or more.
Yesterday I stepped onto YouTube and woke up 3 hours later after watching basically every UFO video ever shot.
Not only that, but pageviews havent been a relevant marker for some time now. However, time on site is definitely relevant, and you think how long a YouTube user is on the site, watching MINUTES of video vs clicking on offsite links. - skangus, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Welcome to digg.
- eclipse492, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8its hard to tell. youtube would probably take up more time, and more repeat hits. for example its easy to spend an hour on youtube and see 30+ individual pages (depending on what you're watching, well over 60 is easy)
most people use google for a purpose, youtube can wander. I'd still bet money google is larger on individual hits. but depending on exactly what's being measured, youtube could rival it in some places - neodorian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5It's ok. You're allowed to be a grammar nazi to someone who is calling something stupid. It's like the "Get a brain, morans" guy.
- 808kick, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I hope English is your second language
- Archon810, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7I for one bow to our new Youtube overlords.
- jeromeerome, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4If you read the article you would see Compete and Comscore mentioned as two alternatives offering more accurate results.
- shredswithpiks, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3fun fact: youtube origionally didn't have a cap. it was added in an effort to stop people from uploading TV series and movies and whatnot.
- tsbardella, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow criky that was painful. Darn you WarpFox. Darn you and your tube.
- thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Wrong. its = ownership.
- postalblowfish7, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4"However, i have "quite popular" site that ended up on alexa but its not that popular that it ends up into 900 000 most popular sites on the internet."
this is the most unintelligible sentence i've read all day. thank you. - igyigyigy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I dunno, Robert Loggia?
- Nougat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Did you forget the hooqs spam link?
- jsayreallen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2also....it doesn't matter since google own youtube.
- Hervard, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5What would you rely on instead?
- d3bruts1d, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2How many times do we have to tell Michael @ TechCrunch that Alexa data is ***** pointless? We've been telling him that for years. Why the ***** is this news?? Of course it is ***** useless. It isn't a measure of real internet traffic.... is a measure how many idiots using the stupid Alexa toolbar visit a ***** site.
- Radan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Actually.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6034577.stm
- bonzooznob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Relying on stats from a spyware toolbar is stupid. You couldn't pay me to install the toolbar, I don't use IE, and I don't visit crap sites. Alexa is over. Its data at one point was mildly relevant and correct, but now, it is just inaccurate.
- masterstan, on 12/06/2008, -2/+4Thank god this wasn't a BREAKING article
- jayadelson, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Maybe a larger question the public needs to ask here is whether or not panel-based measurement of highly niche-oriented traffic works. I really don't see how it can, but I'll try to be objective as I can about it.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4i work in the online advertising industry and can confirm that alexa is not really that accurate. then again, all third party web statistics are really not that accurate. that article uses comscore as an example of how alexa is off, but comscore can be just as flaky with data, even if it is an industry standard tool.
- lazyrussian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Umm, are you blind???
- postalblowfish7, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4only old people use yahoo and ask.com.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2techcrunch staff are morons, it clearly says movers and shakers, and yes youtube has increased more than google recently so it's 100% accurate.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -10/+11God damn this proves digg is retarded these day. You ***** moron who dugg this guy and Fuzzmeister down get your heads out of your asses the world only has 6 billion people and saying that 38 billion people have them as their home page not just stupid, its plain insane.
- Lightspeed2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1wow you are a lifeless *****
- Lightspeed2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2yahoo is #1 moron, only idiots use google
- jzp-digg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It doesn't. Nielsen-style samples and self-selecting panel ratings are a core of 'old media'+marketing. The long tail doesn't exist in that world.
- tonaros, on 11/14/2007, -0/+1Just putting this out there, but publicXuse may have meant what he said- that he was linked to videos, not viewing embedded ones.
- scuba7183, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1yeah you gosh darned *****
- Dracker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Godamit isn't a native English speaker. Lay off the nazism a bit, eh?
- oreo2123, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2heh..."the user's goal...is to get *off*"
hence why porn still accounts for so much traffic. -
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