What is Digg?
50 Comments
- markus941, on 11/26/2007, -0/+59Who has the alexa toolbar installed?
*crickets* - inactive, on 11/26/2007, -0/+18Anyone who believes Alexa is a moron.
Plus they don't bother to ask themselves "How exactly does Alexa know how many page hits Google got in a month without asking them?"
Answer is: they can't. The result is unverified arbitrary results. - inactive, on 11/26/2007, -2/+18It's sucks because a lot of the pay-per-click AD brokers utilize Alexa for determining the value and saleability of your site :(
- sexybobo, on 11/26/2007, -1/+16That is the problem so few people have it installed their ranks are getting really messed up.
- johnyquest, on 11/26/2007, -0/+14The thing they can't understand is that this data represents the "idiot" users of the internet. Most people who have the alexa toolbar installed have no idea that they even have it, or that it's doing anything. These are the same un-savvy internet users who use yahoo, and the like.
- techmonkey4u, on 11/26/2007, -1/+13The sky is green.
- thecosmicpope, on 11/26/2007, -1/+13A site on the internet that posts less than accurate information? Well I never!
- nathan1313us, on 11/26/2007, -1/+11google owns utube theres no reason for a payoff
- rudy23, on 11/26/2007, -0/+9difference is that alexa is a proper corporate firm not just any site on the internet
- madk, on 11/26/2007, -0/+9Despite the countless flaws, there really isn't any better way to compare public statistics. Sad but true. They have more data than anyone else so the non-informed will use them.
- techmonkey4u, on 11/26/2007, -3/+10utube?
- RoboDonut, on 11/26/2007, -0/+6Close, but I wouldn't say that the problem is not the number of people who have it installed. The real problem is the type of people who knowingly install spyware. Their sample is not "sites that people visit", its "sites that insane people visit"
- tempusrob, on 11/26/2007, -1/+7idk, my bff utube?
- stalefries, on 11/26/2007, -0/+6Yeah, that pipe sales company. http://utube.com/
- Chompy, on 11/26/2007, -0/+5That and their entire reason for existence is providing accurate data.
- vertinox, on 11/26/2007, -0/+4The have verified results, but only one people who have opted to install the Alexa toolbar on IE.
Of course the real question is who in the world has the toolbar installed? I've never met one person ever... And seen a lot of computer to fix issues that never had Alexa toolbar installed. Considering Firefox on Windows, Linux, and Macs getting more popular you can't really use Alexa for any really ratings. - fcukbush, on 11/26/2007, -1/+5It's not inaccurate, You just don't know what the data you are looking at means.
- knobtwiddler, on 11/26/2007, -0/+3who has that idiotic alexa toolbar installed anyway? what a joke... THATS how they measure your site traffic?!?!?!
dont you think that would skew the results a bit due to the fact that idiots visit idiotic sites more often than non-idiots? - 93south, on 11/26/2007, -0/+3Alexa was such a thorn in my side when talking with VCs who were hypnotized by the "number"...what's your number, what's your number...I burned a lot of time education the masses as to why it's only a benchmark at best. Compete is the much better alternative for free statistics.
Anyone that could get an accurate, trusted 3rd party metric would make some serious $$$. Comscore and Nielson are also very flawed and only good for larger traffic sites. I appreciate the Hitwise approach because they have the largest claimed sample and their stats are not from panels, toolbars or surveys. They aggregate data from participating ISPs. - inactive, on 11/26/2007, -3/+6Back under ye bridge, troll!!
- drjson, on 11/26/2007, -0/+3This is probably more useful to advertisers. Who is more likely to click on my dancing boxing monkey spyware cleaning pop up advert?
- jlgosse, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3*****. You.
- GeneralLedger, on 11/26/2007, -0/+3Nobody should ever rely on a single source of data. Each source has its own eccentricities. Before forming an opinion about a domain and purchasing it, you should check all sorts of data sources.
- inactive, on 11/26/2007, -0/+2Only stats that are tracked locally will be as accurate as it can be, global stats trackers that use tracking based on the users that go to the site like Alexa will always be incredibly wrong because of the user base they require (every pc on the net). Stats tracking like Google Analytics is your best option for accurate stats tracking.
- bcarl314, on 11/26/2007, -1/+3I've got to say, doing a quick analysis of my server traffic against alexa, quantcast, ranking and compete.com, Alexa's data matches closest with my log analysis. looking at the data from a monthly view at least.
- Zorlac, on 11/26/2007, -1/+3Alexa is to the internet what the Nielsen Ratings are to TV.
It's amazing there are people still stupid enough to use either as a reliable source of data. This is the reason that great TV shows get canceled and we are left with 500 channels or CrapTV.
It's also the reason web sites are sold for many times what they are worth. - spiceasy, on 11/26/2007, -0/+2it's a gage. albeit a flawed gage. and everything should be taken with a grain of salt and multiple sources. compete is a better alternative for US traffic. if any planner is planning and buying based on alexa, the should not only be out of a job, but they should be shot.
- shakin, on 11/26/2007, -1/+3ComScore is better, but I still don't think they're great. In fact, I can guarantee that ComScore has a margin of error of at least 30% based on a couple sites I have been involved with that use multiple traffic analysis methods including ComScore, Alexa, Apache logs, Google Stats, Omniture, and Nielson/Netratings.
- chrystie69, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1yeah this isn't exactly news to those in the business but hopefully some of these marketing and PR firms will figure it out now!
- inactive, on 11/26/2007, -0/+1i was going to make an analogy about how it's stupid to use something that's the "best" when it doesn't have any good competitors, but i'm going to just call you a ***** moron.
- expert01, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1There is an alexa toolbar for firefox.
- Maddoktor2, on 11/26/2007, -1/+2Obviously, not a whole helluva lot... ;-)
- kjcdude, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1I would choose compete over alexa any day, they don't use the toolbar as 100% of their data, they also do what comscore does plus some.
- dijital, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1No... it can't be - I've been monitoring my site(s) rankings with it and I certainly haven't installed their toolbar. Also, I don't count their results as being absolutely conclusive, but they do in fact give you some inkling about the traffic to your site. This paired with Google Analytics, along with a few other technologies and you can begin to get an idea of traffic trends to your site(s).
But depending on what your conversion metrics are, one key mistake is equating traffic with success. - SpikeLee, on 11/26/2007, -0/+1Great quality television does not mean ***** if you can't get people to watch it. It loses the network money and cuts away from programs that would make money for them.
- invisibelle, on 11/26/2007, -0/+0In some definitions of "page view," Youtube's numbers may very well be larger than Google. Not that I'm defending Alexa, but that's just how things work. Comscore's not exactly the pinnacle of accuracy, either.
- murf43143, on 11/26/2007, -5/+5Payoffs?
- michaellaney, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0I thought Alexa was a pretty interesting website. I wondering if this is just a statistic anomaly or if someone forged the numbers.
- BigGourgues, on 11/27/2007, -0/+0Spy ware, toolbars, surveys, aggregate data from participating ISPs. What other ways can you track the hits?
- tech42er, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1Just out of curiosity, what's wrong with Yahoo? It's a search engine.
- etnu, on 11/26/2007, -5/+4Alexa's data is obviously flawed because it's based entirely on the traffic patterns of users willing to install spyware on their computers. Their estimated traffic numbers are laughably wrong -- frequently by an order of magnitude.
- trenttsd, on 11/26/2007, -1/+0Quantcast is the best that I've seen.
- expert01, on 11/27/2007, -3/+1The alexa toolbars are NOT spyware any more than Google itself is. All it does is send Amazon what sites are visited and some sort of unique ID.
- Disfnord, on 11/26/2007, -5/+1yore write, it is sucks.
- jacquesm, on 11/26/2007, -7/+3statistics are like prostitutes, you can make them do whatever you want (quoting my business partner here).
That said, alexa.com has it's uses. If a site is completely not on the radar there they probably don't have much traffic. If you're in the top 10,000 you probably have quite a bit. If you're in the top 100 you are successful, maybe not in general but at least in scamming alexa :)
So, to make the discussion a bit more productive, here is my internal number of uniques:
13500 for yesterday, and here is the alexa page for ww.com: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ ...
That way you have at least one calibration point. Feel free to add more, I'd like to know how reliable this is as much as a lot of other readers of this thread and I have nothing to hide or fake.
best regards,
Jacques Mattheij
CEO ww.com - dilibau, on 11/26/2007, -12/+3I have to admit I kinda began to feel ashamed by the fact that my family name is Alexa. most people I know in the industry associate my name with this site every time I present myself, which really really makes me feel as if I'm "trafficked"
- neilbaylor, on 11/26/2007, -21/+5Man, digg seems to have a maaad hate on for Alexa.
Face it, Alexa is the best traffic measurement tool there is -- when there is a better, more-accurate, tool available -- it will be used, until then Alexa is king. - thinkingserious, on 11/26/2007, -25/+1What do you think of Compete.com?
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is