alexa posts

Google takes on Compete, Alexa

by Brad Linder Jun 20th 2008

Everybody knows that Alexa, Compete, and other web services that track web site traffic are inherently flawed. Because they compile third party data instead of looking at your actual server data, you can never be sure that the statistics you're reading are accurate. But hey, if you really want to see whether Engadget is more popular than Gizmodo, they're the only game in town, right?

Now there's a new player in the web traffic comparison game. Google has added the ability to search for websites in Google Trends. While there's no guarantee that the stats Google spits back are any more accurate than the ones you'll find from Alexa or Compete, the service does give you one more source for comparison.

Search Engine Land reports that Google grabs its numbers from a combination of sources including search traffic, anonymous Google Analytics figures and other third party marketing data.

[via VentureBeat]

Tags: alexa, compete, google-trends, traffic, web-traffic

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Alexa tweaks its ranking system for more accurate results

by Brad Linder Apr 17th 2008

Web site ranking service Alexa has long been one of the most used, and one of the least trusted ways to figure out how popular a web site is. That's because it's difficult to determine a site's actual traffic without access to the owner's private data. But Alexa's reliance on a small army of users who installed a browser toolbar had an obvious tendency to skew the results toward tech-heavy web sites.

Now Alexa is using data from "multiple sources" and not just the toolbar to create more accurate rankings. The company isn't really saying what those sources are, but many web sites will see an adjustment in their Alexa traffic reports. Alexa also isn't admitting that its rankings were incorrect before, just that they were "different."

You'll also notice that you can only get graphs for the last 9 months of traffic. Alexa is recalculating older data and will add multi-year graphs soon.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: alexa, ranking, traffic

Filed under: Internet, Google, Googleholic

Googleholic for February 19, 2008

by Romeo Wahed Feb 19th 2008

Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

This edition covers:

Google loses #2 spot on Alexa rankings
Blueprint of Google's new data center in Harper's magazine
Google Adwords makes changes to URL policy

Tags: adwords, alexa, blogger, data center, DataCenter, google, googleholic

Filed under: Web services

Check web site stats with Xinu

by Brad Linder Jul 16th 2007

Did you know that Google has indexed 18,800 pages for Download Squad? To be honest, neither did we. But that's the sort of information you can get from Xinu, a new web stats tracker.

Just type a URL into Xinu and sit back while it compiles data from all the usual suspects plus a few unusual ones. You'll get the site's Technorati, Alexa, and Google details. but Xinu also grabs data from Yahoo!, Windows Live Search, Lycos, Digg, Bloglines, Clipmarks, and a bunch of other services.

But Xinu doesn't stop there. It also gives you several rather useless statistics like the number of words and characters in a web site's name. Maybe they just wanted to have enough data to fill a whole page.

Update: As has been pointed out in the comments, it looks like the site has been suspended. We'll keep you posted if we hear that Xinu resurfaces.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: alexa, page rank, PageRank, technorati, web stats, WebStats, xinu

Filed under: Business, Internet, News, Web services

Does sampling user data give an accurate picture of traffic?

by Grant Robertson Apr 30th 2007

If you've ever played the web traffic game, where big numbers can mean big advertiser dollars --and small numbers can mean going bust -- you're probably keenly aware of the lousy accuracy of "panel" based sampling methods used to rate and rank sites against each other.

BusinessWeek takes a look at how inaccuracy means trouble for some web upstarts, and at the ongoing struggle by some to straighten out the numbers game. Digg, for example, recently hired heavy-hitting web analytics firm Web Side Story to get to the bottom of a massive gap in their own numbers and those presented by traffic rating firms. Digg's own data showed 15 million uniques per month, while comScore put them at 1-2 million unique visitors for the same period. The difference in ad dollars for a gap like that are enormous, but percentage-wise they can't begin to compare to the plight of many smaller web-fish. "For many, traffic numbers decide not just the price of an ad but whether the advertiser inquires about an ad at all"

Tags: alexa, digg, neilsen, web traffic, WebTraffic

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Utilities, Web services

Get smart profiles and traffic histories of websites with Compete

by Chris Gilmer Apr 3rd 2007

Compete aims to help users by showcasing websites that are trusted, transparent and add value to both the end user and the internet in general.

Compete has a few different products running, SnapShot, Toolbar, and Search. Snapshot is a handy service that provides traffic history and competitive analysis (similar to Statsaholic), which is great for search gurus and online marketing individuals. Toolbar is a browsing tool for IE and Firefox that provides real time SnapShot information to its users. Complete Search is built on Yahoo's search technology, and weaves in SnapShot results to provide trust scores and search results.

This site and the tools it offers isn't for everyone, but those that only care to be presented with what Compete sees as safe, popular and valuable to visitors might find it useful.

Tags: alexa, browse, compete, firefox, ie, search, snapshot, statsaholic, toolbar

Filed under: Internet

Pirate Bay, mininova, and Torrentspy among top Alexa sites

by Jordan Running Jan 23rd 2007

mininova, Torrentspy, and The Pirate Bay on Alexa

TorrentFreak is reporting that three top BitTorrent tracker sites--The Pirate Bay, mininova, and Torrentspy--have accomplished the inevitable and entered the Alexa 200, the top 200 most-trafficked sites on the web acccording to Alexa. Torrentspy has the highest rank at 153, followed by mininova at 165, and The Pirate Bay barely squeezing in at 198. While nobody argues that Alexa's rankings are the picture of accuracy, it does give a pretty good indication of web trends, and this seems like a pretty big trend. TorrentFreak speculates that it was IsoHunt's recent (temporary) shutdown that bumped these sites into the top 200 (with its spillover traffic going to them), and the Alexa chart would seem to confirm that. Now that IsoHunt is back up, I wonder if it will gain back that traffic, knocking the other sites down a notch.

Tags: alexa, alexa 200, Alexa200, bittorrent, mininova, piracy, the pirate bay, ThePirateBay, torrent, torrentfreak, torrentspy, tpb, tracker, traffic

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Blogging, Web services, Freeware, Social Software

Blog Juice Calculator

by Jason Clarke Oct 16th 2006

Text Link Ads is providing an interesting utility that will allow you to index your blog's importance in some specific categories versus other blogs in the same space, called the Blog Juice Calculator. You can also compare your site's relative importance to the top performers. For example, Download Squad gets a very respectable 8.4 in the Computers / Technology category, which puts us about tied with Robert Scoble's blog, and slightly trailing the likes of TechCrunch, LifeHacker, and of course Engadget.

Google Juice is currently calculated based on information from Technorati, Alexa, Bloglines and Links - it's not clear where the Links metric comes from. Of course, knowing that Alexa numbers can be very skewed considering that they're based on statistics gathered by an Internet Explorer toolbar, it's probably not reasonable to consider the Blog Juice Calculator to be the final word in terms of ranking blogs. In fact, Technorati is probably the most widely accepted authority in that regard. But it's fun to play with, and you get this cool little badge for your site, if you happen to get a ranking that you're not too embarrassed to publicize.

Tags: alexa, blog juice, blog juice calculator, blog rankings, BlogJuice, BlogJuiceCalculator, bloglines, BlogRankings, engadget, lifehacker, techcrunch, technorati

Filed under: Internet, Video, Web services, Yahoo!

MySpace Videos surpasses YouTube

by Jordan Running Aug 16th 2006

SiliconBeat is reporting that, according to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube has been surpassed in traffic by MySpace Videos, whose traffic doubled in July. This seems to be in contradiction with Alexa, which has YouTube continuing to climb above MySpace. According to comScore, YouTube had 16 million visitors in July--a 20% increase over July--compared to MySpace Videos' 20 million. Required reading to understand these conflicting numbers is SiliconBeat's Web Stats Are Broken. comScore puts MySpace second only to Yahoo! Video, which it says had 21.1 million visitors in July, exceeding YouTube's growth with a 28% increase over June.

Tags: alexa, comscore, myspace, myspacevideos, stats, traffic, video, yahoo, yahoovideo, youtube

Filed under: Web services, Yahoo!, Social Software

del.icio.us traffic tanking/rocking

by Jordan Running Aug 11th 2006

There's been some contention over del.icio.us' traffic numbers lately, with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington pointing out that, according to Alexa, the social bookmarking site's traffic peaked in April and "by some measures they've tanked completely" since then. I'm a huge fan of del.icio.us, so some recent numbers from Hitwise are the kind that I like better. Hitwise says that del.icio.us is going strong, and since January its traffic has more than doubled. TechCrunch's Marshall Kirkpatrick underscores the real issue here: "Traffic numbers are maddeningly difficult to nail down, it's an issue that's rarely discussed but is a real problem." It just goes to show, you shouldn't rely on stats from just one source, and you should be prepared to flip a coin.

Tags: alexa, del.icio.us, delicious, hitwise, stats, traffic, yahoo

Filed under: Video, Web services, Social Software

YouTube outpaces MySpace

by Jordan Running Aug 1st 2006

I knew YouTube was exploding with popularity, but this I didn't expect: According to Alexa, YouTube surpassed uber-social-networking portal MySpace in June in terms of market share. While MySpace still reigns supreme in terms of pageviews and traffic rank, YouTube's reach--i.e. the number of internet users per million that visit a site--is now at 3.9% compared to MySpace's 3.35%. MySpace's growth continues--eight percent in the last three months--but it has been far outpaced by YouTube's 135%. If you like looking at pretty charts, Alexaholic can hook you up, or you can take a look at the raw numbers for YouTube and MySpace on Alexa.

Tags: alexa, myspace, rank, reach, social, socialnetworking, socialsoftware, traffic, video, youtube

Filed under: Web services, Google, Microsoft

Amazon dumping Google for Microsoft

by Jordan Running May 1st 2006

Search Engine Lowdown is reporting that Amazon appears to be dumping Google in favor of partnerships with Microsoft. In particular, Amazon's A9 search engine now draws results from Microsoft's Live.com, and Amazon subsidiary Alexa is doing the same. A9 and Alexa search results now sport a "Powered by Windows Live" badge. I'm most surprised by the A9 switch, since it has been powered by Google since its debut two years ago. There has been no official release from Amazon concerning the switch.

[Via Slashdot]

Tags: a9, alexa, amazon, google, live, live.com, microsoft, msn, search

Filed under: Web services

Alexaholic: A better interface for Alexa charts

by Jordan Running Mar 16th 2006

Alexaholic "blends Alexa traffic charts with a lightweight ajax-enhanced interface to satisfy hard-core Alexa traffic junkies." What's that mean? It means you can check out Alexa traffic charts with a lot less clutter and a much more responsive interface than you get at Alexa.com. It also has a JavaScript snippet that you can add to your web site to show live charts for any web site(s). Wicked cool.

[Via TechCrunch]

Tags: ajax, alexa, alexaholic, charts, graphs, techcrunch, traffic

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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