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Is Alexa a Reliable Source for Measuring Approximate Traffic?

by Nail Yener
9 replies
Hi all,

I like Alexa but I have to say that I am loosing my trust to it. I have two websites, and here are their average stats:

Website 1: Alexa#: ~4,000,000 Daily Visitors: ~100

Website 2: Alexa#: ~2,000,000 Daily Visitors: ~40

I know it is not measuring the exact values but such a discrepancy in approximation doesn't look like good.

Do you have similar stats? I would like to hear what you think?
#alexa #approximate #measuring #reliable #source #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author BloggingPro
    Alexa, Compete, they are NOT reliable sources for measuring approximate traffic. Why? Well for starters I can easily fool Alexa. Just buy traffic, and watch my ranking on their decrease.

    Second Alexa, Compete and sites like them use a simple "calculation method" to determine your traffic. It's similar to that of those "domain appraisal" scripts which solely exist to blow smoke up your ass. They are essentially guessing by taking various forms of freely available information and "calculating" them into your approx. traffic estimation.

    but such a discrepancy in approximation is not acceptable in my book.
    Not to be a smart ass (lol), but isn't that what an approximation is? A method of determining something while considering the fact that their might be a discrepancy in your numbers. It's a "rough" estimate.
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    You're going to fail. If you're afraid of failure then you do not belong in the Internet Marketing Business. Period.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      It's notoriously unreliable. All it purports to measure (and this very unreliably indeed and partly by guesswork) is users of the so-called Alexa Toolbar, most of whom are internet marketers. It's a waste of space. (And I want the domain-name from them anyway).
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      • Profile picture of the author steve m
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        It's notoriously unreliable. All it purports to measure (and this very unreliably indeed and partly by guesswork) is users of the so-called Alexa Toolbar, most of whom are internet marketers. It's a waste of space. (And I want the domain-name from them anyway).
        Good luck with that, something tells me you'll never get your hands on that domain
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  • Profile picture of the author steve m
    Not reliable, a complete waste of time. Like Alexa said, only visitors with the toolbar installed count. This is why I could have a website in the gardening niche that gets 10,000 unique visitors a day and a much higher alexa rank, then say a tech website.

    As more tech minded visitors will have the toolbar installed. I never ever look at alexa as it's so far out.

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author crystalDMP
    wow, I have to thank each and everyone above as I didn't really know that. I use alexa almost everytime when I need to check stats for websites... So if it's not reliabl; are there any websites or tools out there that are reliable?
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    • Profile picture of the author steve m
      Originally Posted by crystalDMP View Post

      wow, I have to thank each and everyone above as I didn't really know that. I use alexa almost everytime when I need to check stats for websites... So if it's not reliabl; are there any websites or tools out there that are reliable?

      Trellian Competitive Intelligence - Business Intelligence Tool is about as good as it gets. Might need to take out a second mortgage to get it though as it's by know means the cheapest.

      http://ci.trellian.com/order.html

      Here's the order page, take a deep breath

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Micah Medina
    That word "approximate", it's always a killer, isn't it?
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    • Profile picture of the author steve m
      Originally Posted by Hearts Frozen View Post

      That word "approximate", it's always a killer, isn't it?
      Tell me about it, not to mention the "Assumptions" one
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  • Profile picture of the author imback
    Yep like the others have said it is not reliable.

    CHAD
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