Our Alexa rating is rissing steadily !

[emporiumdays]

ha... I haven't heard of that first quote.....

but that second quote - (I assume is an ad for beer), I can imagine how the ad might run...... I used to drink a lot in my younger years, til I realised, (or should I say 'my wife' realised) the damage I was doing to myself.

I'm pleased to say that I'm 'on the straight and narrow'. Not an easy road, but I think I'm healthier for it........

[suesjools]

ha... I haven't heard of that first quote.....

but that second qoute - (I assume is an ad for beer), I can imagine how the ad might run...... I used to drink a lot in my younger years, til I realised, (or should I say 'my wife' realised) the damage I was doing to myself.

I'm pleased to say that I'm 'on the straight and narrow'. Not an easy road, but I think I'm healthier for it........

Good for you! I need to quit smoking, not much of a drinker unless you count coffee, which I refuse to give up til it's banned or I'm in a box, whichever comes first.

Best wishes for many sales to all,

[HerMajesty]

To keep on the straight and narrow, just remember this one thing. There are 3 types of lies: Lies; Damned Lies; and Statistics

Gotta love Mark Twain.....he was quite insightful!!!!!

[PetBazaar]

He certainly was...

I always liked his comment on cigarettes:

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

[Juliebabe25]

@Petbazaar

I know what you are saying.
But having a rising Alexa cannot but help us all.
Even if they all came from ebid members who installed the Alexa toolbar tomorrow.

Don't forget that many ebid members are probably on other sites as well, so it would improve those sites as well.

Also the same upwards trend on Alexa is shown by two other ratings sites Compete and Quantcast and at least one of those does not have a toolbar system,



A

[emporiumdays]

..... the same upwards trend on Alexa is shown by two other ratings sites Compete and Quantcast and at least one of those does not have a toolbar system,

Here's info on the 2 that Julue mentioned. (taken from wikipedia)...

Compete.com is a web traffic analysis service of Compete, Inc. which operates in the United States and publishes the approximate number of global visitors to the top 1,000,000 web sites in the world. This number is computed from sources including internet service providers, opt-in panels, application providers, and users of the Compete toolbar. The Compete Toolbar allows users to view the Compete Trust Scores and the U.S. Internet ranks of websites they visit. This is done by sending the URLs that users visit to Compete.com. Compete.com then sends back the trust scores and internet ranks from its database to the users. Additionally, users of the Compete Toolbar have the option of participating in Community Share. By participating in Community Share, users will be assigned a user number, and that number will be submitted along with the URLs of the websites that these users visit. This information will be used to roughly determine how many users visit each website.

Quantcast is a media measurement, web analytics service that allows users to view audience statistics for millions of websites. Quantcast Corporation's prime focus is to analyze the Internet's web sites in order to obtain accurate usage statistics by surfers from the USA. Like Alexa, Quantcast rates Web pages by ranks. Quantcast statistics always refer to the usage from the United States, therefore Alexa data and Quantcast data do not always show the same results. Quantcast does not require a toolbar to be installed upon one's web browser to obtain statistics. Instead participating websites voluntarily insert Quantcast HTML code inside Web pages they wish to have included in statistics. This code allows Quantcast to keep track of the traffic directed towards those Web sites.

I'm not sure, but it's possible that 'Quantcast' costs to get the statistics ....

[PetBazaar]

@Petbazaar
But having a rising Alexa cannot but help us all.
Even if they all came from ebid members who installed the Alexa toolbar tomorrow.
A

I agree with you there, any site that shows an improving rating will help. All I'm saying is that it might not be an entirely reliable guide to visitor numbers. My concern being that people automatically assume that since the rating is impoving that the visitor numbers must be too.

I'm not just having a go at Alexa either, the figures from any rankings site that relies on toolbars, opt ins, payments or code inserted into webpages must be taken with a pinch of salt.

The reason I use Google Trends as a counter to the Alexa figures is that it doesn't rely on anything more than Google referring a person onto eBid's site. And while I accept that Google isn't the only way that people will arrive at eBid it's a method that doesn't require any extras (toolbars, optins) in order to be counted.

But here's were the lies, damned lies, and statistics point comes into play.

Does the slightly downward trend shown by google mean that eBid visitor numbers are dropping? Or does it mean that people who had previously used Google to get here now come directly and so have dropped out of the stats?

Sometimes my head hurts after working on this sort of stuff.

[emporiumdays]

Can you clarify what you mean by coming directly?

[PetBazaar]

By coming directly, I mean someone who goes to their webbrowser and types www (or us, uk, au etc) .ebid.net

Google trends only records those who go to Google, enter keywords and click on a result that takes them to eBid.

So some people who, to begin with, went to Google and found eBid may now go straight to eBid bypassing Google, therefore Google shows a decline in visitors.

[emporiumdays]

Thanks PetBazaar - of course - makes sense.
Yes well that could (like you say) be a factor causing 'google trends' to be flat or in decline.
So I suppose the only thing we could say (with any certainty) is that Alexa's Rise is reflecting more 'log-ons' to eBid, (but the 'log-ons' are not necessarily due to new visitors) ...