Alexa web site statistics

[maxim_al]

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]

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]

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=10103

If you install the alexa toolbar, information is send to alexa.

[maxim_al]

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]

I've got some info on it on my page about why alexa doesn't matter in new zealand

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]

Does anyone have numbers?
Does alexa toolbar changes browser's user agent signature?

[classifieds]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by maxim_al

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]

Originally Posted by dcristo

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.