| Verifying Unique Visitor Claims |
|
|
|
Written by Carrie MacKenzie March 27, 2006
Hi everyone...
I wanted to know if there was any way possible to verify the figures when folks "offer" great rates to advertise on their websites, because they get 6,000 visitors a day... How does one sift through claims like that anyway? Sometimes the websites look very professional... sometimes they look home made, like mine. I know you can't tell by the way they look, and was wondering if there was any way. Would Alexa provide that information? (If I knew how to go get it.)
btw.. I was checking backlinks on google the other day after reading in the LED on how to do it, and several showed up from LED archives.. :)
Thanks for all the info you folks provide.. this is a GREAT
digest!
Carrie MacKenzie
Written by Brad Waller March 28, 2006 > [Is it possible] to verify the figures when
> folks "offer" great rates to advertise on
> their websites, because they get 6,000
> visitors a day... How does one sift
> through claims like that anyway?
- Carrie MacKenzie
Unless the site is one of the top few thousand sites, and you have access to some third party verification, it is nearly impossible to be sure. You can use Alexa ranking to get an idea if the site is popular, but that can't tell you the difference between 5,000 uniques a month and 50,000. It can help you if they claim a million uniques, but their Alexa rank is also around a million. Then you know that they don't know a thing and are likely reporting "hits", not visitors - let alone uniques.
If you have a reasonable feel and do advertise, there are some things you can do. Serve the actual ad yourself, or include a 1x1 blank tracking pixel that you do serve with the order. This way you can actually validate the count of ads served, and you can run the data through an analytics package to determine uniques. This is after the fact, but you can also build a guarantee into your insertion order.
Specify a minimum number of uniques that is 85% what they claim you will get. If you are even close, then you can be happy. If you are off by an order of magnitude, then you know that they misunderstood or misrepresented their traffic.
Brad Waller
adjungle.com
Written by Shari Thurow March 28, 2006
Hi all-
This is in response to Carrie MacKenzie's post in LED #2125 regarding site traffic. I want to dispel an immediate myth. As much as my colleagues like to tout the greatness of Alexa, I don't tout it. In order for those traffic analyses to be accurate, all of your site visitors must have the Alexa toolbar installed. Let's be honest, how many of you have that toolbar installed? I don't have any toolbars installed. Search engines can pay me to analyze my search behavior. They are not getting it for free from
me.
Back to Alexa. I'm sure many of you have anecdotal evidence that proves Alexa is accurate. I have equal (and probably better) anecdotal evidence that proves it is not accurate. I have viewed and analyzed Web analytics data for thousands of sites since 1997 and still continue to do work in this area. I've seen Alexa's numbers mimic Web analytics data, and I've seen Alexa not get it right at all. Conclusion? It's not accurate. So I don't use it.
In reality, you don't know a site's actual traffic unless the Web site owner shares his Web analytics data with you, assuming the Web analytics software has been configured accurately.
Carrie is correct for not making assumptions based on appearance. To be honest, I am always amazed that the best performing sites I create and maintain are not necessarily the best looking ones. I know how hard it is to get past appearance, and many companies (unfortunately) base opinions on appearance rather than facts.
Bottom line? Sign the NDA and insist on seeing actual traffic data if it is that important to you. Don't assume anything based on appearance or anything that requires a toolbar installation.
Sincerely,
Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director
Grantastic Designs, Inc.
Written by Susan Geraeds March 28, 2006 I think Alexa is the way to go, although it might not be entirely accurate it gives you quite a good indication of traffic to a web site. Just use the "traffic rankings" feature on the Alexa main page and type in the URL are you checking. It returns a traffic rank that is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews by Alexa users.
Another source could be Whois.sc, they also give information about a web site's blacklist status and last cache - high traffic web sites get cached more often.
Susan Geraeds
venere.com
Written by Dejan Bizinger March 29, 2006
Carrie, it is a very good question! To get some orientation about popularity of certain site you can use 3 things:
1) Alexa rating - http://www.alexa.com
3) Link popularity checker - http://www.linkpopularity.com
Beside that, ask them to tell you which web statistics service they use for their web site tracking. Different web statistics services often give different results. Many web statistics services and software especially Webalizer or similar can have public option so that anyone can see the results if it is enabled.
Also, you can sign-up for some good, free statistics service like Statcounter or Sitemeter, make a project for web site you want to advertise on and ask them to put your code on their web site. If they don't want to do that it is most likely that they are not telling the truth.
HTH,
Best regards,
Dejan Bizinger, Internet consultant
emarketingblog.com
Written by Bob Gladstein March 29, 2006 Hi Carrie,
Alexa figures won't tell you much, since they only count users with the Alexa toolbar enabled. If a site is going to make claims about traffic, the only reliable way for them to prove it is to give you access to their log files.
Keep in mind that "traffic" in and of itself isn't really worth bragging about. If a site gets 10,000 visitors a day, but 98% of them hit the home page and leave within five seconds, I wouldn't consider that particularly impressive. What you really want to know is whether the site is respected and recommended by other sites within its niche.
Bob Gladstein
Written by John Smart March 29, 2006 Unique visitors on a traffic report is an educated guess.
Assume you use AOL dial up. (ugh!) If you visit my site, you will be a unique visitor. Hang up and dial in again, and unless you get the exact same connection to AOL, you will be another unique visitor.
Let's assume you are in an office, with broadband going to several PC's - 4 people in the office could visit the site, and that would be one unique visitor. It is never more than a guess. What about cookies? I hear you ask (I have very good hearing!!) Well, that can help, and add to the confusion. What if your visitor doesn't accept cookies? Then every visit will be unique! Unless you merge the two methods, and even then there is an element of chance involved.
The only 'true' number is how many visitors, and get the best software you can to manage your stats. We use AW Stats - I really like it. We used to use Webtrends - but web trends got too big for their boots, if you ask me. Their reporting is awesome - their price structure is terrifying! If you have the money though - it is probably worth it - I loved it when we were signed up!
John Smart, Technical Director
InternetDesign.com
Written by Steve Pronger
March 30, 2006 > Alexa figures won't tell you much, since they
> only count users with the Alexa toolbar enabled.
- Bob Gladstein
While Alexa can not give you an exact, comprehensive report on a particular site's traffic (no third party resource can really), as a research tool it certainly has value in my opinion. Yes, there are anomalies - a client's site of mine gets almost twice as much traffic as my own site yet her site has a lower Alexa ranking, but generally it is a good indicator of a site's standing.
If a site has a ranking of under 100,000 you can be pretty sure it receives a significant amount of traffic. If it has a ranking of over 1 million or returns a "no data found" response it COULD be a high traffic site but PROBABLY isn't. I'd be doubtful of any high traffic claims made for it, or at least want to see some verifiable statistics. The ground between 100,000 and 1 million is where most websites lie - good to average traffic.
Certainly a high Alexa ranking is no guarantee that a site is returning a profit or achieving whatever goals the owner set for it. But it does indicate that significant numbers of people are visiting it, and surely that's half the battle.
Steve Pronger
stevepronger.com
<Moderator Comment> For more on this, check out this discussion between Aaron Wall and Ken Evoy on Alexa. Some interesting points are made on both sides. Comments (0)
 Write comment
|
