How accurate do you think Alexa is?
 

Hi

How accurate do you think Alexa.com is with its stats and rankings.

I find it hard to belive it is accurate at all.

What are your thoughts?

http://www.alexa.com/

I find alexa to be useful to me as a webmaster since once a website is around for a while it gives me a general view of how much traffic I get compared to other sites. I'd love to see an "adult alexa" that ranks only adult oriented sites, but that's a pipe dream.

Alexa uses 3 and 6 month averaged rankings to generate a site's rating, so until a site has been up for a while the base ranking doesn't mean much at all. I find it particularly useful to get one more piece of info on sites I'm considering advertising/promoting with, since it's objective. Or for checking the info on an existing domain offered for sale.

I would love to know exactly how alexa comes up with its numbers (exactly what they're counting, etc.), so if anyone on the board knows share with the rest of us!

Overall, I consider Alexa to be a reference tool and nothing more. It can be great as long as you don't put too much credence in the numbers, and use it as just one more information source.

I don't mean to bust your chops Madmax, but have you bothered to read how alexa works on their webpage? |rasta|

Re: How accurate do you think Alexa is?
 

If Greenguyandjim put a link on the board to Alexa or somehow encouraged more users to install the Alexa toolbar this site would move up the rankings without any extra traffic..

Here is a few suggestions of easy ways people use to "Cheat Alexa"

It's ok as a guide to find big sites in your market but I wouldn't assume a site ranked 25,000 is any bigger than a site ranked 100,000 for example.

The "about Alexa" page on their site is pretty generic, basically saying that they use info gathered from the Alexa toolbar. I haven't seen anything that actually explain what they factor into their results and how, but in all honesty sometimes I have a "blind" moment so if they've got a page I can't find that's entirely possible!

BTW, I don't mind having my chops busted if I deserve it. |shake|


Great info Opti, thanks!

Max,
Check this out bro
http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/tra...earn_more.html
btw, to answer the question posted:
I think it is accurate overall, but it can be misleading. Our TGP rank on Alexa is something like 15k, but we only get a minimum amount of that to the main TGP page. I use that domain to post galleries to other TGPs so overall it affects our traffic ranking. However because I do this, our Google PR for the TGP is a zero because we spread the domain out so far.

Thanks for the link GunnCat, that's precisely what I couldn't find myself. |pcsucks|

Alexa can be useful if used properly. It isn't accurate and it's not possible for any single tool to be accurate. Checking the site, seeing who trades with a site, finding searches for the site and checking link pop are all useful tools. None of them are truly accurate but combining multiple methods can give you a pretty good idea of where a site stands.

Thanks for your views.

I guess we all have the same conclusion, its not very accurate but the tools that are there can be useful to a point.

I can't say I will be using it that much but when I need very general info I may go there.

Thx Again

Right on bro, glad I could help :D

I don't think Alexa is that great of a barometer for site traffic