Yeah, Alexa has lots of flaws. But, as a longitudinal long term study, it has its place and purpose. I think we’d all prefer that advertisers take a broader look and sample many sources. Such is the world, though.

I’m sorry, I haven’t posted the links yet. My apologies. I’ve just been swamped. I pray I’ll get the post up today. I’ve got it almost done.

I’ll get it up there as soon as I can.

But that doesn’t mean that the info isn’t “directionally” accurate. You’re right — if the spikes are in the right place, it’s useful. Just one more thing to add to the monitoring mix.

PS — Did I overlook the link of brand and buzz monitoring tools? I wrote as fast as I could at the PRCA conference (!) but I feel like I missed some that you recommended.

The stats from all of these tracking services have to be taken in perspective. I know none of them are exact. In the cases above, they match well with our Google Analytics stats.

There are caveats in each. Alexa will tell you that any stats for a site with a rank above 100,000 should be viewed with caution. They don’t have enough data to make a deeper evaluation. The same is likely for Compete because they, too, are using publicly available data.

Even Google Analytics isn’t exact. Server caching will diminish the page counts & visit totals. If the code required to count a hit is at the bottom of the page, and a visitor immediately clicks another link, then that visit won’t be counted. Ning.com (our software platform), for instance, caches pages. So, one would guess that our numbers are actually higher. But, who knows. ) It goes on and on.

In my opinion, the best aspect of all these sites are when we take them as a longitudinal study over a long period of time. If they track with consistency – and any spikes can be matched with unique happenings on those dates – then you can better judge them to at least reveal a pattern. Still, the numbers are not exact.

That’s why I shared multiple examples from different sites. I don’t have the Google Analytics (or other stats) from the other sites, so I didn’t include them. I have nothing to compare them to. But, I did compare the numbers after you commented and they do show the same / similar numbers and trends / spikes in our site.

When I first started blogging, I looked at stats all the time. Now, it is rare if I even look at them once a month. The reason? I discovered that numbers aren’t that important for what I’m doing, with one exception. If I know the population of my target audiences and I see a significant percentage of those audiences being reached, well … then I’ve done my job.

Of course, I’m not selling anything. So, that would be a whole different story on a commercial site. That’s what surprised me about how well we did against commercial sites that have staffs, budgets and resources that are – at minimum – in the million dollar range.

Hope that helps. Thanks!

P.S. By the way, nothing beats looking at the server logs. However, since we’re using Ning.com as our platform, we don’t have access to the server logs. )

What have you found about the accuracy of the statistics on sites like Compete and Alexa? I assume you’ve embedded some type of analytics for your site(s) — which website comparison tool gives the most accurate stats? Any caveats about using the data?
LORI

Congratulations on your astounding growth — well, not yours exactly, the site’s. That’s fantastic news and I always find this site interesting browsing and reading. Great job and I’m proud to be a small part of it.

PROpenmic is wonderful, and congratulations again on the success this site has achieved in such a short time.

And it’s the SNCR Fellows like you that make SNCR so successful!

Best wishes and many thanks for all you do!

Jen

Thanks. A comparison of SNCR.org, NewCommReview.com and PROpenMic.org is below.

And, this link to Compete.com shows the comparison so you can modify it for other stats. You’ll need to create an account (it is free) so you can compare 5 sites at a time.

Just looking at it quickly, if you combine the two sites (SNCR & NewCommReview), you’re kicking everyone’s rear. ;o) But, SNCR.org still has more traffic than NewCommReview.

Very interesting, and thanks for including us. I’d be interested to see how http://www.Newcommreview.com fared – given that SNCR.org is really quite a static organizational site and NewCommReview is our interactive news site with much more participation by our Fellows and up-to-the-minute content – much more comparable to some of the others you mentioned.

Best -

Jen