Alexa rank vs compete.com ranking

I work for Compete, and can highlight a few differences (earnestly trying not to "pitch" my company):

Alexa is based on toolbar installs, Compete gets data from multiple sources (licensed ISP and ASP data, an opt in panel, and several different toolbars, and Firefox extensions.

Compete only reports US based traffic, Alexa reports international traffic.

Compete normalizes and projects its data, Alexa is based on raw share. Because of this, Alexa will present data on a share base, Compete shows absolutes.

We show a bunch of different metrics (Visitors, Rank, Visits, Time Spent, PVs/Visit, and daily/monthly attention - a metric based on collective time spent).

We also offer premium search marketing reports that can show you where people click through to for over 19 million search phrases, and what search terms are driving traffic to over a million sites.

 

A new stats site? It sure looks that way.

More accurate than Alexa? I dunno.

 

Since Alexa requires a toolbar to measure the traffic it is extremely prone to manipulation. In addition Alexa is mostly a U.S. used tool and I doubt many people if at all in the rest of the world have ever heard of it, much less installed the toolbar so it's not reliable by any stretch of the imagination as anything other than a very rough guide.

 

Great domain name!

 

This is true... they do have a good domain name. However, Alexa's is shorter and more unique. I like the way compete.com calculates traffic and ignores international traffic, even though should consider areas like the UK, Canada, Austrailia, etc. and ignore dominantly non-english speaking markets.

 

Here you go - http://blog.compete.com/2006/12/11/compete-vs-alexa-competitive-site-metrics/

 

compete takes data from alexa and some extra things

alexa is still better

 

Aine...not sure where you get your info, but we do NOT use alexa data at all.

 

I Heard about alexa , but i dont know about compete ....strange name for me . For me alexa gives good traffic views ....but i would suggest quantcast site also ...it also gives traffic views for site...........

 

How do you guys get your data from multiple ISPs though?

 

$$ ISPs see all the traffic of their users, and assuming they have user consent, will strip out PII and liscense the data to companies like compete.

 

compete.com is brand of domaintools.com/spry group

 

I've never heard of it either - that's not saying much tho (I'm sure there are millions of sites I've never heard of!)

It's data doesn't look like anything I get from Google Analytics or Alexa so I dought it's valid... shame. Nice site.

 

never hear of compete before, but alex rank is not that important

 

another who has never heard of Complete.. But I have heard of Alexa and of course Google PR

 

I've been a big fan of compete.com for a while. Alexa stats are way off. Want to increase your alexa rank? Get 5 of your most active users to install the alexa toolbar, and watch your alexa rank go through the roof. Take those 5 users away, and your rank will plummet. Yes, 5 will do it. Their toolbar is installed so thinly that their ranking outside of the top 1000 sites is completely off. The fact that compete.com gets their data from ISP's means its a true sample of internet traffic.

On a side note, google is most likely collecting the same data, and since their install base is probably >30% of US internet users, only google knows the true ranking of websites.

 

Alexa is a lot easier to use because you dont really do anything...I started looking at Compete.com yesterday and its hard to add your site to it...ive been trying to figure that out for a while...

As for the whole alexa ranking issue?? I dont know about 5 people...I think it takes more than that.

 

I have to say I like Compete a lot better (and glad to see someone from Compete answering questions here - thank you) and it is much more accurate. I WISH COMPETE WOULD CREATE A WIDGET THAT EVERYONE COULD INSTALL ON THEIR SITE LIKE ALEXA'S WIDGET (I bolded it hoping they would see it) and then you would get more of the directory owners to buy in. So please, please Compete create a widget as I love your service and want it to grow!

 

Toolbar based ranking !! can it be perfect ranking for our websites? its very simple i guess if your user use that toolbar bang you are on top !!