Alexa Updating Ranking System - Bargain Sites Affected?
TechCrunch reports Alexa has overhauled its ranking system to use more sources than just its toolbars. There has been big shifts in the Blogosphere where many webmaster-centric blogs suffer a dip. On the other hand, many sites that are not Internet/web design-related actually get a boost in Alexa ranking. For example yesterday OzBargain was around 96,000+ for 3 months average, and now it is hovering around 55,000+.
I am now waiting for Yan to update all his monthly deal sharing/coupon site rankings, in light with the new Alexa data :)
On the topic of website ranking using Alexa, there is this interesting discussion thread on Whirlpool Forums, where “back-to-school” asks “Which bargains/freebies/coupons sites have you visited in last 12 months?”, and listed out 5 top bargain sites in Australia according to Alexa data, with one obvious omission, i.e. OzBargain (thanks to Neil who quickly raised this issue :)
Well, I won’t write yet another long article on who back-to-school, Skippy99 and a few other users on Whirlpool are (or is?), but now with Alexa using extra sources, it is actually quite possible to find out who are the top bargain sites in Australia.
| Site | Alexa Ranking 3mo avg | Alexa Australia Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| RetailMeNot | 3,608 | 1,391 |
| OzBargain | 55,371 | 654 |
| TopBargains | 132,214 | 1,513 |
| Simple Savings | 144,940 | 1,695 |
| Buckscoop | 158,920 | 2,358 |
| The Freebies Blog | 342,110 | 12,647 |
| Jonk’s Bargains | 1,316,493 | 27,194 |
As of 18 April 2008 at 1:30am AEST. Others like Dealicous and Bargain Sniper are not listed as they do not yet have an Australian ranking. I am sure there are other sites but it is too early in the morning and I am too tired to think properly.
But the question I would like to ask is — is that an accurate presentation on how popular a site is? I am afraid to say that the updated Alexa ranking is still far from being perfect. One measurement I usually look at is the amount of activity, if it is a community site/forum. If we are just counting the number of posts, then Buckscoop would be far more popular (or their members are more vocal).
Number of current online users is also a metric for measurement, and I think over 15 minute interval is pretty much universally accepted — except on average each OzBargain visitor is only staying for less than 3 minutes (and will be more for forums, much less for blogs).
At the end of the day, all these comparisons are probably not that useful but amusing nevertheless. Maybe I shall do what Yan does for ProBargainHunter.com by ranking bargain/coupon sites every month, except an Australian version. They can be easily automated with AWIS calls. Anyone interested?
Good stuff that OzBargain is number 2. Quick rise to the top.
@Raja — well I am not quite sure. My whole point was, although Alexa’s new algorithm is getting better, it is still far from a perfect ranking system. Say, Buckscoop has far more comments/posts. Despite my previous issues with TopBargains, I must commend them for their SEO effort.
I compiled the list for coupon sites earlier this month just after Alexa made the change. It looks like they all went up in ranking by 40-50%. I expect similar results for deal and price comparison sites.
http://probargainhunter.com/2008/04/16/popular-coupon-sites-march-2008/
Alexa is a weird one for me.
My traffic has gone from 500 per day this year and my Alexa has basically been static the whole time.
Most of my visits nowadays are to my unblock website pages, and I think a huge proportion of them aren’t into tech/are internet n00bs.
uhhh i accidentally used Html
From less than 50 to more than 500 per day
In terms of Alexa, I have one site getting 30 visits a day and then Jonk’s which yesterday collected 880 and both have the same Alexa. Still not happy with it
But yeh I’m not optimising for the term Bargains any more which explains my slide down the Google rankings
Nice work on clawing #3
Jonk — I saw you are using Google Analytic on your site. Is the 880 figure from Google Analytic, or from the stats provided by hosting company? What I found is the hosting company-based stats (AWstat for example) is quite inaccurate due to amount of bots activities.
Hi Scott
Yeh I found the same thing with my one Webalizer 6 months ago. I hated biting the bullet to get “real” stats because when I switched to Analytics the stats had me at around 10-20 a day, down from 150. (See why I didn’t want to bite the bullet?)
Since then I have loved the power of Analytics. I hate how it’s so late to update though.
So yeh, I’m using Analytics. From March my traffic has been really climbing, and every every Tuesday I get a new site record. Do you have any ideas why Tuesday is the magical day? The most positive thing is that the growth in terms of absolute numbers sets new records every week as well.
Unfortunately, that won’t last very long because I’m splitting the non-bargain related stuff off into several other websites so I can focus my SEO a little better. Currently Jonk’s is such a shotgun website SEO-wise that it was beginning to feel stupid.