Which is more accurate Alexa Rank or Compete Rank ?
When it comes to measuring the amount of traffic a web site gets, the two big names which stand out are Alexa Rank and Compete rank. These provide the most reliable information to the people seeking traffic information about a website.For an outside player trying to guess website traffic which mostly forms the biggest parameter in calculating website’s worth, the task is not an easy one. Apart from web master no body can be sure of what traffic the site gets, therefore one has to rely on stats widely accepted and easily available such as Alexa rank , Compete Rank, Quantcast, ComScore, Hitwise, Nielsen and many more.
Alexa and Compete rank have existed for quite long time but the bigger question is
Well, there is no doubt that capturing the traffic analytics from other sources on the internet would be difficult.
Alexa estimates the amount of traffic by capturing data from users who use the Alexa Toolbar in their web browser.Source
Compete collects data from a 2,000,000 member panel of US Internet users. Source
Methodologically both are similar in nature, since both of them do not capture the exact statistics but estimate traffic by using the normalization and statistical techniques to from the registered traffic users who have installed their toolbars or are in their panel.
but the question still remains which one to trust?
Definitely, both of them have similar short comings, I would not believe one to be better than another in terms of data collection. However, the only criteria which remains to prove the credibility of their ranking is the number of registered users they have.
And that is where Alexa wins over Compete.
But here another point comes into the picture that of spoofing or faking ranks, by buying traffic or using a software which generates virtual traffic. My experience is that Alexa fails miserably in identifying the real human traffic and considers the virtual traffic as real one, but the other side of picture is that to a webmaster it does not help to buy virtual traffic, as you will not get more sales and if the traffic is not genuine then the decrease in ranks would not increase the value of the property [except in cases of Fraud/Scams].
My experience is that,
But at the end I still like Alexa more than Compete.
I agree with your "Bottom Line"!!
You are absolutely spot on! Alexa Rocks!!
@Nathan:
Yup that is why Alexa is more popular than compete.
"Alexa gives an overestimate and compete gives an underestimation of traffic and ranks."?
Not always. My main site ranks higher in Compete than in Alexa. My second site ranks higher in Alexa than my main site, even though Google Analytics shows that My main site has about ten times more traffic.
Why? My second site is targeted at web site owners. They are far more likely to install the Alexa tool bar. Alexa toolbar owners are not typical of of the vast majority Internet users, who generally don’t own websites. Alexa skews results and I wouldn’t trust. I don’t trust Compete much either – all of these services suffer from using sampling that is either too small, or skewed or both.
>> Alexa skews results and I wouldn’t trust.
Agree. Alexa is too biased to be possibly accurate.
Compete is accurate on my website. It’s amazing that Compete always shows between 75%~85% of my monthly # of unique visitors, and accords to my server reports.
Do you know ANYONE that uses an Alexa toolbar in their browser? Didn’t think so…
Alexa rank does not reliably show the statistics, their statistics are based on the toolbars. When I had about 100 visits a day, Alexa Rank was 110K. When my website (www.unavitaverde.net) got to 900 visits per day and there was improved depth of page views, Alexa rating has deteriorated to 400K. It’s brad…