I've had lot's of communication recently from people stressing because their website is not ranking at all or "high enough" in traffic ranking sites such as Alexa.

Alexa's own faq, mentions that they currently index around 11.2 million web sites. PC Authority, released an article in November 2006, stating that over 100 million websites were on the Internet (although only half were active). They also state that new websites are coming along at a rate of 3.5 million websites per month.

So Alexa's popularity index is effectively representing around 10 to 20 percent of all websites on the Internet. In other words, Alexa is showing you the popularity of 10 to 20 percent of all websites on the Internet. Hardly a true representation of the majority of web sites, is it?

And the reason why they can't be more representative of the majority of websites? Their data is only captured if the visitor to a website has a toolbar installed in their browser (this information is then sent back to the "mothership" to be included in traffic rankings).

It get's worse though. The toolbar can only be installed on Microsoft Windows, and on Internet Explorer only. Sure, there are plugin's that you get download that will display the Alexa Rank for a particular page, but the data capture only works on one platform, and one browser!

If you believe the numbers, Internet Explorer at best has 80% of the browser market (probably a lot less) so another 20% of the Internet community is excluded from the rankings. When you factor in "non-windows" users, i.e. Macintosh, Linux, devices such as PDA's, mobile phones, etc you really starting to walk on shaky ground.

And what of particular groups, for example Software Developers. I don't know of any software developers who use Internet Explorer daily (other than to test a particular page for support). So if were the case worldwide, Software Developers (using them purely as an example) would not be represented in the traffic rankings at all!

So what are we left with: -

• 10 to 20 percent of all websites on the internet (at best) are even included in Alexa's rankings
• Only the surfing habits of users on Microsoft Windows using Internet Explorer are considered important enough to be included.
• Surfing habits of users on non Windows Environments are not considered.
• It's likely that entire professions (e.g. software development) would have very little representation.

Hardly conclusive is it? One of Alexa's major competitors Compete, does little better, they do support Firefox (yay!) but only Windows users, and only around 2 million users. So their entire ranking is determined by this select group of people.

Essentially if you have a good ranking in Alexa, Compete or other types of companies like this, you need to be aware that it's a ranking by a very small subset of the entire Internet community that has determined it.

Now I am not saying you should ignore the rankings from these web sites. They are definitely good as a start point, and it's likely (but not guaranteed) that you are probably going to be having lots of web traffic from visitors outside the selected group who these sites rely on for their calculations if you have a decent rank with these types of sites.

What I am saying is that there is no need to break out into a cold sweat if you not doing well according to their rankings.

A company that is on the right track is Quantcast they do not require a toolbar to be installed on the visitors computers, rather they use data from advertisers, publishers, ISPS, etc as a basic for their traffic calculations. In addition a web site owner can add some simple html to their site which will then firm up the numbers (sending data back to Quantcast to help in traffic calculations). Of course this opens up the door to data manipulation by web site owners.

What this means is, if a web site owner did not know about Quantcast, or did not use services that partner with Quantcast, they may not appear in their calculations at all! And they might be getting millions of visitors per month!

Quantcast's own faq mentions that the data they collect is but a drop in the ocean compared to the entire Internet.

There service is a step in the right direction, but it confirms that there is no sure fire way for external entities to accurately collect traffic information on the majority of the web sites on the Internet.

More to the point, if your stressing because your website is not getting good rankings in these sites, or worse still, if your spending thousands of dollars trying to get in there, you may well be wasting your money and time doing so.

Focusing instead on great, relevant content that a visitor to your web site will find of value, and give them a reason to bookmark your site and to visit again (or purchase your products, etc). This is far more likely to give you success than a ranking from a traffic site.

At the end of the day, the only important ranking should be the amount of traffic coming to your website, and the percentage of conversions you are making from that (conversions being sales, or opt-in's, or whatever else you are trying to achieve).

Until next time.

Cheers

Tim Buchalka