Comments on: This Is Gonna Be Short

By: Fleen: Your Favorite Faux-Muckrakers Since 2005 » Webcomics + VC = The Future

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:41:56 +0000

[...] Let’s play ‘what if’ for a moment. This page has called for the creation of ‘Aduz’ or an ‘anti-Zuda’, a [...]

By: T Campbell

T Campbell — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:20:22 +0000

Hey, that’s why we call it “the unreliable survey,” Gary. I’m hoping that the more data we can gather on this matter, the more useful it will become.

But I’m also hoping that in a year or two, I can chuck Alexa and Compete for two or three sounder systems.

As for your desire to have the data confirmed by top-tier webcartoonists– I wish you luck, and you’re certainly better at the networking thing than I am, but I think you might run up against the problems I outline here (search “Alexa” to get to the relevant Q&A).

And Christopher: I don’t want to wave the Alexa flag, but I don’t think your objections are exactly sound either. Sampling is always based upon a fraction of the audience. For a comic of any size, I think less than 1% of the audience is in regular communication with the cartoonist, and that 1% tends to be the most dedicated fans. I have no doubt that the hardcore Help Deskers distrust “spyware,” but do they represent your entire audience in that? Because you are also being read by people like me, who at least used the Google Toolbar for a while.

By: Christopher Wright

Christopher Wright — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:06:05 +0000

Well Sam, you also have to take into account whether or not your readership would be inclined to *use* the Alexa toolbar. Since a lot of my readership actually uses banner-ad blocking software and most are leery of spyware to begin with I’d say most of my regulars still don’t use it.

By: Sam Logan

Sam Logan — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:10:28 +0000

My site stats tell me that 60% of my readers are using Firefox! I always used that to justify my relatively low Alexa ranking… I guess I’ll have to come up with a new excuse now.

By: Chris Crosby

Chris Crosby — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:20:20 +0000

Christopher:

There’s also an Alexa toolbar for Firefox called Sparky (I’ve had it installed for months), so it’s not just limited to Internet Explorer anymore. http://www.alexa.com/site/download/

By: xerexes

xerexes — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:06:46 +0000

Gary

Give me a little credit for exploring the Alexa idea before Mr. T. I went there and thrashed it out with many in webcomics before deciding that while it was interesting it was too problematic to do as a regular thing.

I have my own ideas on what would work better (maybe coming soon one day…), but just going to go to the Alexa well here again — I don’t see it as much of an improvement (from what I’ve pulled from Compete -out of curiosity - it’s even worse than Alexa).

By: Christopher Wright

Christopher Wright — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:56:26 +0000

Also, I hate your recaptcha.

By: Christopher Wright

Christopher Wright — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:54:39 +0000

I still don’t think it’ll make much difference.

Alexa still only works on Microsoft Internet Explorers browsers — officially, at any rate. While Internet Explorer makes up the majority of the internet browsing experience (though not by as large a margin as it used to) it only accounts to somewhere between 25-33% of my site traffic.

So Alexa is basing my alexa ranking on a quarter of my readership. Oor a third of it at best.

Also we need to factor in how many new people start using Alexa each day compared to how many new readers you get each day. If your site is growing but not as fast as the Alexa userbase is, your site will slide down the rankings.

It’s bad math on the internet.

I don’t know much about Compete, so I can’t speak to how accurate they are.