HeadsetOptions Web Design, SEO, WordPress, Etcetra

Since Alexa made changes to their ranking algorithm, headsetoptions.org dropped off the top 100K for over 3 months (we are back now), which has not been the case since we started some 20 months ago. The best score for our site was 36K, and on average was around 60K, now we are at around 90K. The drop in the ranking trend was similar to most all technology bloggers; even sites like TechCrunch lost out on the ranking game and were pushed back.

Of course it had no implication on traffic to the sites, but it makes a hell of a lot of difference to folks who rely on such free stats services to invest their advertising dollars, which begs the questions, is Alexa a true representation of reality? Is there a free online tool which is closer to the truth?

What Changed with Alexa Ranking?

According to Alexa, they finally decided to rely on more than just information collected via the tool bar, which makes a lot sense, but the “new sources” is far from correct, and I say it with confidence because you as a user, can accurately monitor your traffic data using services such as Google Analytics or/and Sitemeter. One point of contention that Alexa used as the reason for ranking drop was that Alexa was able to identify each time the webmaster visited her/his own site and eliminating those entries from the stats. That is not only impossible, but in a way suggests that the webmasters were artificially skewing the data by visiting her/his site frequently, which I believe is preposterous.

Nonetheless, Alexa as a source for reliable stats is anything but credible.

What are the Other (Free) Alternatives to Alexa?

While numerous methods can be employed to allow users to evaluate your site status, Sitemeter and QuantCast being two of the more popular choices, both require the site owners to subscribe and include scripts to their site. This poses issues in some browsers and worse, assumes that the user is smart enough to know where to look for such stats.

So the simpler and more accurate alternative is Compete. This site is similar to Alexa in many ways, but the data is far more similar to the information you can monitor using Google Analytics.

Why is Google Analytics Considered Accurate?

With Google Analytics, you the owner, can actually identify and exclude your IP addresses from the stats, allowing the monitoring of visitors from the World Wide Web. This is exactly what Alexa claims to be able to do without the owner acknowledging which IP address to exclude! So the closer the data set to Google Analytics, the more accurate it gets.

Check the example data from Alexa and Compete in the graphs. Compare with Google Analytics (last trend) and see for yourself. The trends in both the Compete and Google graphs show a growth in site traffic, while the trend in Alexa graph shows a decline in reach, which according to Alexa is the aggregated historical traffic data.

I highly recommend you check Compete for free site statistics. Don’t forget to sign up for free and access all the Pro features!