Alexa Explains How Traffic Is Calculated

Alexa made an entry into their official blog today that gives the answers to quite a few questions that people have been asking lately. “How is Alexa traffic calculated?”, “What is classified as a visit?” and “Why doesn’t Alexa data ever match a site’s server logs?” are three questions that Alexa answered today.

Alexa points out that users who read their site’s server logs may not be getting accurate data and or could be reading it wrong. Geoffrey Mack, product manager of Alexa and blog author mentions, “Few individuals are sophisticated enough to read their logs and understand what they mean.”  Mack further adds, “the sad fact is that logs are deceiving and that no two log programs are the same.”

Geoffrey Mack manages Alexa’s product management, customer support, website development and business development departments. Geoff’s relentless focus on customer service and strategic vision for Alexa products and services are key to Alexa’s continued success. Geoffrey joined the Alexa team in 1997 and quickly took over the management of the customer support team and the creation of a data quality/editorial department.

Mack points out today that there are a lot of contributing factors to how Alexa collects and reports data about a user’s site and further illustrates that users should place a lot of value in Alexa and consider Alexa as a main source for collecting traffic data. Touching on this Mack says, “Don’t get me wrong. Web site logs are still important and definitely have their place. But they require vastly more sophistication from users if they are to be interpreted properly and/or compared with one another.” Continuing his point he adds the importance of downloading the Alexa Toolbar, “The alternative is a panel, like Alexa. It isn’t perfect, but provided that your site is adequately represented in our panel, it is often better than your own logs.”

With such a full and descriptive post about Alexa and how accurate Alexa reports traffic data from a user’s site, it can be hard to pass this statement up, “If you would like to join Alexa’s panel so that your visits are counted too, install the Alexa Toolbar and distribute it to your users.” I am sure that many people share the opinion that Alexa is accurate with the traffic that is counted. But, the amount of traffic counted is only from users who use the Alexa Toolbar. Thus, there are many people who question why Alexa feels their data collection abilities are superior to other programs available to the general public such as, Google Analytics.

Google Analytics includes a record of all traffic activity, as do many other programs, Site Meter, Extreme Tracking, and MyBlogLog are to name a few. These third party programs which are basically shunned by Alexa do something that Alexa Traffic ranking doesn’t do: Don’t require you to download a toolbar to get a collection of all traffic data.

Alexa though, does speak very highly of their toolbar as mentioned by Mack, “The Web’s very first toolbar is still the best and getting better all the time.” Yet, for many in the blogosphere, people can’t but help to question if this is true or not. In a side by side comparison, is Alexa’s Toolbar any better than Google’s Toolbar… or Yahoo’s Toolbar for that matter?

Many bloggers (especially the ones that are out to make money online) admit that the only reason they download the Alexa Toolbar is because they want to increase their Alexa Traffic Rank, which to keep matters simple… control how much money that can be made through various third party programs such as, Text-Link-Ads and ReviewMe.com.

Where Does Garry Conn Stand With Alexa?

That is difficult. I personally don’t see how Alexa is more powerful than Google. The only thing Alexa has going for them, and still to this day, I truly appreciate, is The Wayback Machine. As far as toolbars go, Google Toolbar is the best. As far as third party unbiased and free traffic analysis goes, again… I have to give it up to Google, with their Google Analytics program.  

But…

If you are out to make money online, especially with the latest phase and craze of being successful with Text-Link-Ads, ReviewMe.com and the others… you have no choice but to roll with the flow and support Alexa in their efforts. In essence, you need to download their toolbar and also encourage all your readers to do it too.

My Concerns…

I am stuck in a situation between what I feel is ethics and being successful making money online. Text-Link-Ads, ReviewMe.com and various other programs partly use Alexa in considering to approve new sites into their money making programs. I can’t say that I feel doing this is wrong… but I can say that I feel that a more accurate determination or screening process could be implemented by using Google site data rather than Alexa site data.

Google doesn’t force people to download their toolbar to collect accurate traffic data about a site. Google says, download our toolbar if you like… and download the JavaScript and paste it into your footer file if you want us to manage your traffic data…

Alexa says we will do a great job collecting data from ONLY the users who visit your site who have downloaded their toolbar….

I don’t like to be strong armed. And I really don’t like to use programs who make a deciding factor to include my site into their money making programs from companies that gather data based on strong arming me.

Why do I use Third Party Advertisement…

The same reason everyone else does… however my reasoning also has a twist to it. I am not going to discuss my twist, but if you spend some time looking into what I am doing, you might be able to read into my strategy. Also, don’t get me wrong. I really feel that third party advertisement programs are great! Some people don’t have the time or the desire to fool with establishing their own independent advertisement campaigns… and that is perfectly fine! Consequently, if someone is willing to fork out 50% of their advertising income to a broker, more power to them! I don’t judge people for doing things like this. It creates jobs, and creates needs. My main rants are I don’t like what Alexa is doing, and I don’t like the fact that many popular third party advertisement brokerage companies use Alexa to determine whether they want to include you into their program or not.

On a closing note…

I want to mention, thank and recognize Jack, the author of the Life With Google blog for supporting my site and my creation of The Blog Review Exchange Directory. He mentions, “Doing a review for a backlink is becoming a daily activity now… it’s not a hard thing to do.” and I would guess he would also be pretty open minded towards writing something for you. Pay Jack a visit and contact him directly and I am sure that he would enjoy writing a review for you if you were to do the same for him.

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