Normalkid:Arnold Kim

When we try to figure out the growth of a site, or the relative traffic between sites, we often turn to the only free public tools available for the job.

That would be Compete.com and Alexa.com. Both are known to be inaccurate, however, Alexa perhaps more notoriously so.

The reason for their inaccuracy is the method of their tracking. Alexa relies on traffic stats from their toolbar that users must install. So, it’s not a representative cross section of the internet. Compete incorporates data from ISPs, toolbar users, and opt-in panels. Despite their added efforts, I’ve found their numbers to also be way off.

Finally, there’s Quantcast — another traffic estimator service. I’ve personally found their estimates to be equally inaccurate. However, unique to their service is the ability for site owners to place actual Quantcast tracking tags on their site so their traffic is directly measured. Once they collect enough data, they will display (if you chose to opt in) the actual traffic stats for all to see.

What this means is we can actually compare actual traffic stats to Compete’s estimated traffic stats (which are also reported in uniques/month) to see what Compete’s margin of error can be across different sites.

Based on a small sample of websites (n=25), Compete’s estimates predict from 18.6% to 137% of a site’s actually measured traffic stats.

See this graph (click for larger):

Explanation of Columns

Worldwide Uniques
  Actually measured Worldwide traffic via Quantcast

U.S. Uniques
  Actually measured U.S. traffic via Quantcast

Compete U.S. Uniques
  Compete’s estimate based on their aggregate data.

% of Actual world
  How far off is Compete’s U.S. numbers compared to Actual Worldwide

% of Actual US
  How far off is Compete’s U.S. numbers compared to Actual U.S.

Now, to be fair, Compete only claims to offer estimates of U.S. monthly uniques, but I’ve included Worldwide uniques to point out how deceptive this can be for sites with a large international audience, such as Hi5.com. Compete’s U.S. estimate only counts 3.13% of Hi5’s actual worldwide traffic. Even when comparing U.S. numbers, Compete still underestimates Hi5’s U.S. traffic by over 50%.

Worst Estimates (U.S.)

In our small sample size, the most underestimated traffic sites where

MacRumors.com - 18% of Actual U.S traffic
Wonkette.com - 22% of Actual U.S. traffic
FunnyorDie.com - 24.8% of Actual U.S. traffic
icanhascheezburger.com - 24.94% of Actual U.S. traffic
Gizmodo.com - 27.97% of Actual U.S. traffic
BoingBoing.net - 32.08% of Actual U.S. traffic
Propeller.com -35.16% of Actual U.S. traffic

Best Estimates (U.S.)

These sites’ estimates were not that far off, and in some cases overestimated actual numbers.

Whateverlife.com - 76.2% of Actual U.S. traffic
TechCrunch.com - 76.2% of Actual U.S. traffic
Hotornot.com - 81.67% of Actual U.S. traffic
Gigaom.com - 93.70% of Actual U.S. traffic
Slide.com - 111.18% of Actual U.S. traffic
Wikia.com - 112.79% of Actual U.S. traffic
Digg.com - 137.01% of Actual U.S. traffic

Conclusions

I’m not sure if many conclusions can be drawn from this data alone, but it just shows that traffic stats estimates can be very deceptive. I was somewhat surprised that some sites’ estimates were actually greater than their actual stats.

A pet peeve of mine is when bloggers mistakingly interpret Technorati’s Top Blogs list as a measure of a site’s relative traffic.

This is not what it measures.

Technorati’s Top Blogs list measures the number of inbound links, not traffic — though there may be a loose correlation.

As a side effect of this list, TechCrunch, which is near the top of this list, is frequently cited as one of the most popular blogs on the internet. I have nothing against TechCrunch, and certainly agree it’s amongst the most influential blogs, but in terms of pure traffic, it’s very respectable, but not at the top of the list.

The problem in determining relative traffic amongst blogs is that relatively few sites publicly broadcast their traffic stats. Instead, we’ve had to rely on expensive ComScore stats (not very accurate), or public trackers, such as Alexa and Compete — also notoriously inaccurate.

So, I’ve compiled a list of well known blogs that have public measured (not estimated) traffic information (via Quantcast) and added in TechCrunch’s self reported numbers as well. I’ve also included a few non-blogs as points of reference. These include: digg.com, propeller.com, whateverlife.com and hotornot.com.

This is not an exhaustive list. Only sites that publicly report their numbers are shown. Most blogs keep their traffic figures private.

* TechCrunch stats are from January 2008, reported in their blog.
** these are not blogs, but included for reference.

Some interesting notes about some of the sites on the list.

WhateverLife.com - started by a 14 year old. Now an emancipated 17 year old. Turned down a $1.5 million offer for the site, and appears to be doing quite well.

HotorNot.com - acquired for a rumored $20 million. Was reportedly making millions a year through their dating service.

Icanhascheezburger.com - a LOL cats site started by Eric Nakagawa in January 2007 who now works full time at his site.

Overall, an interesting perspective. I think we tech web folk get caught up in our own little worlds, and should realize that a site like PerezHilton attracts over twice the number of unique visitors in a month than the very popular Gizmodo.