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maxim_al
May 2nd 2005, 2:43 pm
Are Alexa stats reliable?
I heared somewhere that Internet Explorer has integrated Alexa engine which is sending relevant informations to Alexa.com. Any info about that?
runnerunner
May 2nd 2005, 2:56 pm
they're not really reliable unless you're around the top 100,000. It's based on how many people with the alexa toolbar, found on their site, view your page. The toolbar only works with IE
WhatiFind
May 2nd 2005, 2:57 pm
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=10103

If you install the alexa toolbar, information is send to alexa.
maxim_al
May 2nd 2005, 3:15 pm
do you guys hae any estimations on how many installed toolbars they have? it's interesting to know how big sample they're using for statistical calculation.
sarahk
May 2nd 2005, 3:18 pm
I've got some info on it on my page about why alexa doesn't matter in new zealand (http://sarahk.pcpropertymanager.com/muck/alexa.php)

You don't say what country you are in but unless you are in the UK I'd just ignore alexa.

I've tried the toolbar and it wasn't a patch on Google's. Adaware and spybot don't like it either.

Sarah
maxim_al
May 2nd 2005, 3:28 pm
Does anyone have numbers?
Does alexa toolbar changes browser's user agent signature?
classifieds
May 2nd 2005, 3:44 pm
I installed the toolbar and in two days my alexa ranking went up/dropped by 100k (from 260k to 140k). In my opinion it's totally irrelevant.

-jay
sarahk
May 2nd 2005, 4:01 pm
here are some useragents

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Rogers Hi-Speed Internet; FunWebProducts; Alexa Toolbar)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Alexa Toolbar)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Alexa Toolbar)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; (R1 1.3); Alexa Toolbar)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; YComp 5.0.0.0; Alexa Toolbar)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Alexa Toolbar)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Q312461; Hotbar 4.1.4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Alexa Toolbar)

you get the idea...
classifieds
May 2nd 2005, 4:17 pm
I'd say they qualify as spyware / virus software.

If fact I've not been able to completely uninstall alexa from ms-ie. I don't use explorer often (only for verifying UI changes) so it's not worth the effort.

-jay
dcristo
May 2nd 2005, 9:03 pm
Whilst the Alexa toolbar is not completely accurate as not everyone has the toolbar installed, it's still usefull to compare sites across industries etc. Also, its pretty hard to fake a bad alexa ranking so the toolbar does have it's uses.
dcristo
May 2nd 2005, 9:04 pm
do you guys hae any estimations on how many installed toolbars they have? it's interesting to know how big sample they're using for statistical calculation.

If I remember correctly... the toolbar is installed on 1 million PCs. Head over to the Alexa site its probably got it there.
classifieds
May 3rd 2005, 1:16 am
Whilst the Alexa toolbar is not completely accurate as not everyone has the toolbar installed, it's still usefull to compare sites across industries etc. Also, its pretty hard to fake a bad alexa ranking so the toolbar does have it's uses.I suspect that the majority of the toobar installs are webmasters or emoloyees of firms that are trying to increase their Alexa rankings.

Just a factoid: About 2% of the browsers visiting my site have "Alexa Toolbar" in their UA (which I consider a pretty high). It's one of the few things I don't collect for trending/reporting so I don't know if its increasing or decreasing.