Internet Marketing Tycoon

**drgeorgep** · 11-17-2007, 04:30 PM

Hi ... realize Alexa is of limited use and marginal, but what's happening to Grub Street, when it comes to "traffic data," is baffling, to say the least, and, though I've tried everything, imaginable, the numbers keep getting worse. (I know, what a %$#@ing long sentence.) So, I gotta ask, any ideas why?

Numbers, in all categories, traffic rank, page views and reach, have fallen to almost nothing, since the summer (2007). During the same period, my uniques have gone up 50% and my page views have wobbled in the 25% to 100% increase range. At last check, site has about 2,400 back links, from PR0 to PR7 or PR8. Back links and PR have increased, considerably, over the same period as site Alexa numbers have fallen into an abyss. See for yourself: http://alexa.com/data/details/traffi.../grubstreet.ca

Increased UV and PV come, mostly, from USA, Canada and Asia, areas where the Alexa tool bar has deep penetratiion (sic). I researched the problem, and implemented every white and gray hat measure, mentioned. Still, site Alexa numbers fall, deeper and deeper into nothing.

Anybody have any ideas? I'd like to know why. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Thanks in advance.

**chrishirst** · 06:14 PM

What about your real stats. Not the imaginary extrapolated unreliable "data" churned out by Alexa from an ever decreasing sub set of users.

If I may suggest that you stop looking at these fake & useless metrics and implement some site stats package that YOU can control and can analyse, and that will tell you real things about your pages.

Toolbar PR means nothing
Backlinks? why does anybody need to know how many backlinks there are in existence.
Analyse your backlinks by the ones that send visitors (you'll find them as referrers in your site logs) THEY are the one that are useful and the type that should be cultivated. Not the crappy ones from directories run by every man and his dog, or links begged from random "webmasters" who can't see the wood for the green bar over their eyes.

Forget Alexa or if you are that desperate install the toolbar yourself and visit your site continuously all day, hey you can even download bots that will do that for you.
Get family and friends to join in with it. Their anti spyware software will enjoy uninstalling the alexa stuff every day as well.
And don't forget to set your browser home page to your site via an alexa redirect as well.
You won't get any more sales and it might cost you more in bandwidth, but hey the alexa rank will start to change.
and of course you could get all your backlinks through the alexa redirect as well, it won't improve any Google, MSN or Yahoo results but what the heck!

Reach? what exactly is this anyway.

As you say yourself

Quote:

Alexa is of limited use and marginal,

So why care?
About the only thing that is happening is Alexa toolbar use is dropping off as people use different browsers, it used to be active with every Windows install on every IE version up to Ver5. Not any more. From V6 it had to be a deliberate download.
Linux users, Mac users, Windows users on any other browser, are NOT part of the data set, so the amount of returned data for Alexa to use is decreasing.
So what was a unreliable traffic report just keeps on getting more and more unreliable.

<edited to add >
http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/03/07/...e-alexa-stats/

**Noobstein** · 11-17-2007, 06:55 PM

If he knows his page views have gone to almost nothing, then wouldn't that mean he is already using a webstat program? It sounds like he has some real data already.

Perhaps he should be looking at them more closely and comparing where his current visitors are coming from to his past visitors.

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-17-2007, 08:09 PM

What Hirst said, but with two more things to add.

1) You said your site traffic has gone up according to your own stats program. That's the big number. Alexa is just a public metric that is going the way of the dinosaur.

2) Public metrics are only good for false Digital Pointless marketplaces now anyway.

**drgeorgep** · 11-17-2007, 10:48 PM

Hi All ... thanks for the replies.

My Alexa debacle is more a curiosity, than a serious concern. I religiously read all your postings, and know the sham. It's your postings that put and keep my "hard" numbers up.

There's an old show biz adage that reveals the way of the world. "If the image is better than the truth, go with the image." It seems many, if not most, consumers live by this adage.

Also, as my site pays its bills and more, I try to attract new and better writers. They don't know uniques or page views from, well, Adam. The PR and Alexa have an air of concreteness to them, and their friends. Now that the site PR is 4, they ask, "How come your Alexa is 460,000 when, two months ago, when we first talked, it was 170,000?" "My friends," said a fellow, on Friday, "said it should be going the other way?" Since status is everything to writers, for example, I get blown off, once again.

I'm grateful the site carries its own weight, and definitely attribute it to, in no particular order, Adam, Noobstein and Chrishirst, among others. Bottom line for me is I find a white hat way to reverse the Alexa trend or, perhaps better yet, a way to explain it.

Thanks, again, for this and all.