[Air-L] Web traffic rankings and numbers

[Stacy Blasiola]

Hi Jarosław,

When i worked in local media I could compare our actual website numbers to
what Alexa reported. I describe it as woefully inaccurate. That said, it's
a popular free tool and it is used a fair amount in publications, so it has
that going for it. I think this reflects availability more than
reliability. So whether to use it depends on how important the accuracy of
that number is for your argument.

If you want to understand where their numbers come from, they explain it
here:

"Alexa's traffic estimates are based on data from our global traffic panel,
which is a sample of millions of Internet users using one of over 25,000
different browser extensions. In addition, we gather much of our traffic
data from direct sources in the form of sites that have chosen to install
the Alexa script on their site and certify their metrics. However, site
owners can always choose to keep their certified metrics private.

Our global traffic rank is a measure of how a website is doing relative to
all other sites on the web over the past 3 months. The rank is calculated
using a proprietary methodology that combines a site's estimated average of
daily unique visitors and its estimated number of pageviews over the past 3
months. We provide a similar country-specific ranking, which is a
measurement of how a website ranks in a particular country relative to
other sites over the past month."

That's from http://www.alexa.com/about

Here's a hack I use when I can: if the website has a media kit you can
often get traffic numbers from those. Just google: website name Year
mediakit .PDF (that's what usually works for me).

Otherwise, search AdAge for articles relating to the site you're interested
in. They often have articles that list web traffic for the bigger sites.

Cheers,
Stacy
 On Sep 2, 2014 12:49 AM, "Noha Nagi" <noha.a.nagi at gmail.com> wrote:

> For me, I found it mentioned in academic articles. It's probably reliable.
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:52 AM, Jarosław Kopeć <jaroslaw.kopec at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > This is my first e-mail. It's great that there is such a list. I will
> > probably using it extensively in next couple of months ;)
> >
> > My question relating alexa.com is -- how reliable is this? Anyone used
> > it in a scientific paper as an authoritative source?
> >
> > 2014-09-01 23:59 GMT+02:00 Noha Nagi <noha.a.nagi at gmail.com>:
> > > Try http://www.alexa.com/
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 5:36 PM, Anthony Nadler <amnadler at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> I'm wondering where other researchers go to find measures of
> particular
> > >> websites' traffic as well as web traffic rankings for certain
> categories
> > >> (i.e. news, etc)?  Any sites that keep good historical records of this
> > >> data?
> > >>
> > >> I'm also wondering if anyone knows of an article or other source that
> > >> offers a good overview for thinking about the complexities of
> measuring
> > and
> > >> ranking web traffic and speaks to the pros and cons of different
> > >> techniques?  I'm writing about from a humanistic background with a
> > desire
> > >> to touch upon rankings data in a considered way.
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Anthony Nadler
> > >> Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies
> > >> Ursinus College
> > >> _______________________________________________
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > *Noha A.Nagi*
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
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> > >
> > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > > http://www.aoir.org/
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jarosław Kopeć
> > http://surfing.wymiarywiedzy.pl
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *Noha A.Nagi*
> _______________________________________________
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