18:28 by FoxTwo
New Alexa Ranks Don't Inspire Much Confidence Anymore
The new Alexa rankings caught me by surprise, in more ways than one.
Remember I was saying that my blog is just "so-so" and that I don't really have a lot of traffic? At best 150 or so daily is the norm (I know, it's pathetic compared to you guys but I'm happy with the figure ok?). My rankings have always been around 300,000 or so, and it yo-yos up and down around that figure.
Yesterday I was surprised to see my current ranking - it jumped almost 100,000 places to 222,000. I got excited for awhile, till I checked out their website. They announced that they've changed the way they rank websites.
So now my website is sporting a brand spanking new rank.
But, the next surprise was in store for me. Check out the pic.
Alexa stats
Suddenly, my visitors from USA dropped from 50% to 29.7% ?? What happened to my Singapore statistics? Who the hell in Nigeria is reading my blog?! And hell no, my blog isn't a 419 spammer blog ok?
Google Analytics stats
Statcounter Stats
I checked my other stat counters, like Google Analytics, and sure enough, zero visitors from Nigeria. Over at Google, at least, it still shows the usual - roughly 48% USA, 46% Singaporeans, and 2% other places (ok Statcounter says otherwise). Well, in any case, other counters still say Singapore and USA are my main traffic sources.
Now, this anomaly doesn't inspire much confidence in Alexa ranks anymore. I don't see "Nigeria" listed anywhere else in my other 2 statistics counters. Not just "a few" Nigerians. According to this statistic, almost HALF of my 150 daily visitors come from Nigeria! I'd really, really like to see just exactly how Alexa determined that Nigerians are reading my blog whereas the other 2 counters don't even register anything from there.
The biggest question is - what happened to the stats for Singapore?!
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Miss Loi @ Thursday, April 17, 2008 11:24:00 PM At least Nigeria helped you rise in the charts.
After reading this, I did a check and I'm now officially down from #200k+ to #1,147,262!!! *cries* -
FoxTwo @ Friday, April 18, 2008 12:46:00 AM missloi - *pat pat* dun cry, you'll flood The Temple again... shhh!!! I go your blog more often from now on ok? help you rise in the rankings....
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YongWei @ Friday, April 18, 2008 11:01:00 AM
don't trust those counters,i've got like almost 5000reads from ping.sg
while i only got 3800+ at my blog -
FoxTwo @ Friday, April 18, 2008 5:15:00 PM
ahwei - ping.sg reads are just clicks to your blog. Every click is a "read". Counters *DO* differentiate between return visits and new visits, and the numbers will be different from ping.sg "reads". Normally ping.sg "reads" will be higher than the figure shown in counters.
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tianhong @ Friday, April 18, 2008 5:31:00 PM
haha i think they change their algorithm too often to keep track. no point paying too much attention about it since a single line of their ranking algor can change everything. in the end, it's still the amount of user coming to your blog to read your articles.
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FoxTwo @ Saturday, April 19, 2008 3:22:00 AM
plaktoz - ah, but PPP, or "Pay Per Post", depends partly on the alexa rankings to give you "opportunities". The change in the ranking structure will impact many, MANY blogs on whether they can be qualified to write on those "opportunities"....
Although I'm not really depending on the ranks, because I do not really depend on my blog to earn an income, it still has some bearings on how "popular" my blog is, in its own way. -
Susan from UK web developers @ Monday, April 21, 2008 3:48:00 PM
Use google analytics, alexa is stupid... I heard, that it count only visitors with alexa toolbar and with MIE, and Opera and Firexor are starting to be more used.
For example one site with 3000 visitors a day has only 100K ranking in alexa. -
FoxTwo @ Monday, April 21, 2008 5:58:00 PM
Susan - thanks for dropping by. Yes I still trust Google Analytics more than other counters, especially over Alexa now. Alexa totally screwed up their rankings now.
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Mcneri @ Tuesday, April 22, 2008 12:15:00 AM
Wow, you are really passionate about 419 spammers! I was not happy the way you stereotyped the Nigerians. Did you ever recieve a 419 spam?
In Nigeria, many-a-time the servers they use for internet are hosted in the USA. because of that, more often than not the stats come up as being from USA. That country has 150 million people, and most of the internet browsing is done from cybercafes. Cybercafes are more likely to have an Alexa toolbar installed. Now if Aleaxa managed to identify your users better, saying they actually come from Nigeria should'nt you adjust your content and remember them? Preach some anti-419 message instead of stereotyping them? Just a curious question. Did you ever imagine that what if it was actually true? Did you? Get real and grow your blog. Target your visitors better and stop all this. -
FoxTwo @ Tuesday, April 22, 2008 2:14:00 AM
Mcneri - wow, I only mentioned 419 spam in 1 line and you get all defensive. The whole point of the post is lost upon you I guess. I was saying the stats from Alexa don't tally with other counters. If 8 out of 10 people say the same thing, chances are the remaining 2 are incorrect, right?
I say again - the post is about how lousy the stats from Alexa are, not about Nigerian scams. Your comment is the only thing in this entry making a big deal about Nigerian scams and stereotyping.
