__/ [John Bokma] on Monday 06 February 2006 21:07 \__
> "Chumley Walrus" <springb2k@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> How accurate, or credible is alexa.com summarizing website traffic for
>> a given URL.
Laughably 'accurate'. Webmasters prefer to boost their own ranks, so quite
naturally they tend to permit spying on self. The result is that sites which
attract Webmasters 'beat the clock'.
Arguments could also be made which take into account the operating system
uses (compatibility) and user awareness to spying, which is closely-related
to competence with IT.
> they use the Alexa (spy)bar to measure this, so you see statistics based
> on their measurements. Since they have quite a lot of users (can't
> remember the exact figure) using the bar, it might be accurate enough for
> what it reports.
For the record, they also gather statistics from the A9 toolbar, which is
available for Firefox. If there is an Amazon toolbar, they would use that
too. They are desperate for larger samples. We live in an age when people
pay a lot of money for eavesdropping, contact information, and people's
history. It helps targetted ads, detection of piracy, and marketable
statistics.
Roy
--
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