Is ALEXA.com used THAT much to determine AD RATES?? Is it really THAT reliable? Unless you're in the top 1000 or so - how can it be that reliable?
I have never seen a major site refer to Alexa when justifying rates as those sites have better research resources to cite. The only folks I have seen refer to Alexa are more Mom and Pop type sites. In terms of reliability? Directional at best as they derive their traffic numbers from their tool bar. The general public does not have its tool bar in their browser - only a small cadre of web geeks (and I say that with affection).
A partner and I built some MySpace support websites (icons, glitters, layouts, etc.) and when started out we used Alexa all the time. When they started picking us up we got excited. As we became more savvy however... we learned that there are much, much better tracking systems out there. And it shows where you are per millions online. It's an estimate from my understanding.
adtoll.com is a popular reliable service that uses alexa as an integral part for advertisers to determine traffic levels for publisher sites
From what I am gathering Alexa is overrated. Correct me if I'm wrong, their statistics only come from people who use their tool bar (roughly 2% of internet users).
We do show the Alexa ranking for the purpose of educating advertisers. We do not use the ranking for anything else other than that. ie.. it is not used in any calculations or in anything to determine a price or rating for a site. The Alexa rank is a tool used by prospective advertisers to help make decisions... it's ONE factor that should be considered when spending money on advertising, there are many others. More importantly with AdToll we give the advertiser real statistics based on data we have collected...
Three very helpful tools that ALL have blindspots in them in are: 1) Alexa 2) Quantcast (another free rating tool that you can cross reference with) 3) Google Page Rank Some good points were made above. And yes, all three of these tools rate based on their OWN knowledge of how popular websites are. (Google rates based on their knowledge too through the search engines.) Most of the time when you look at all of them, plus the actual visitors and where they come from, etc...you can get a good enough overall picture to start with. 4. Good hard data of actual traffic (and there are schemes today where people buy non-relevant traffic to increase their ratings so make sure it's really relevant.) I started noticing one of my clients was getting a significant amount of referrals from a website that appeared to have a very low rank (across the board). And another website that I know has many visitors and clicks is not even rated in the systems, (and yes, it is listed in Google's search engine). Guess you never know. They tend to be pretty accurate in plenty of instances, all rate based on their own data. Also, I've watched and tested Alexa's ratings system, and I believe they monitor the comings and goings of websites that have their "Alexa profile" listed. AND I believe they have some sort of reporting system from the analytics tracking systems and/or the browsers or internet service providers, because they can at times be shockingly accurate in gauging some of the traffic flow patterns. My own studies, testing and research has shown me they really have their own numbering system heavily tied in with specific websites. For pricing though, the bottom line is: How much traffic does the site send you? How valuable is the traffic? Are people buying or interacting with the site? The better your site performs for their website, and the more value it offers them, the more they'll be willing to pay for it.
Yea, Alexa is definitely overrated. It's pretty good for two things though: 1. Comparing yourself to websites around your size in the same industry. 2. Seeing the progress of your own site. From industry to industry Alexa ratings can vary a lot and if your Alexa ranking keeps dropping it generally means your site is getting more and more traffic.
Alexa should not be given too much credibility and as the previous poster said, rankings actually drop when traffic increases above certain point. Seen that with my sites. Why that happens, I don' know.
Well, I think a lot of places directed for bloggers and stuff focus around Alexa. If you think about it, Adtoll, all the pay per post sites, etc. Honestly, Alexa is overrated and inaccurate just like Compete is.
i have to agree that alexa is being used by many advertisers but not sure which types of advertisers.
Alexa ranking can be fooled with certain tricks some people use. It really is not a great way to see how good a site is doing or how much traffic it has.
I agree... When we were building our sites. We knew Alexa was extremely inaccurate, but we knew that it would track the progress of our site's visability. (Since it ranks your traffic based on people who use their tool bar. Our understanding was that there was an estimating matrix they used, encompasing everyone who used their tool bar and based off that they estimate how many people out there without the tool would visit your site as well.)
If its generally known that ALEXA is innaccurate, why is it even used? I equate it to radio. In radio, RATINGS by Arbitron are selected by a FEW people that rate radio stations with diaries. In other words, depending on the size of the city, a VERY low percentage of people decide the overall "VOTE" on what is most listened to. Is that the same theory with Alexa.com? If it is, why is it even used by people as a "TOOL" to decide advertising revenue?
Because Alexa is free, open to the public, and generally doesn't exhbit any special bias, Alexa is commmonly used. Some other commonly used systems are Google Analytics, Webalizer and AWstats. If you have a larger site, purchase a ComScore or Nielsen Online subscription. However, data from these services isn't public, so advertisers would have to have the faith to trust in your word.
I think TLA also uses Alexa to determine if a site qualifies for the publisher account. I've got a new site that is getting good traffic and is like 250k in Alexa for one month, but something like 1.6m for the 3 month average. TLA denied it saying it doesn't get enough traffic. Umm...3k uv's a day should be sufficient when they approved one of my sites that gets 1500uv's a day (but has a consistant Alexa track record of mid 400k's). Its ok for showing trends, but thats about it.