Thanks everyone! I knew that one should be careful with Alexa but I didn´t expect it could be THAT wrong. It´s a pity because otherwise it could be a convenient and interesting tool. The next question is: is this rather an exception or is Alexa in general not reliable? Maybe I shouldn´t use it for academic papers at all. Best,
René
As in physics the nature and limitations of any measuring tool and concept is part of your research. Personal use of the Alexa toolbar affects measurements only when what one, or a few, persons do matters in the statistics.
Fred
Am 31.05.2011 08:57, schrieb Federico Leva (Nemo):
Laura Hale, 30/05/2011 21:35:
Alexa statstics can be easily manipulated to a degree. The discrepancy could be as simple as having one or two users from Russia who have the Alexa toolbar installed from Russia who visit regularly every day, whereas the americans who visit don't have Alexa installed. (Because the population that tends to have the Alexa toolbar installed tends to be relatively self selecting in terms of certain industries.)
Alexa data should always be taken with a huge grain of salt. I was able to push my own site up to the 2,500th most popular site in Australia meerly by visiting it every day.
+1
René König, 30/05/2011 20:26:
On the other hand, according to Wikimedia stats, the English
Wikiversity
site has much more Views/hr (4,068) than the Russian one (271)
Wikimedia page view stats are not approximate; this simply proves that Alexa is wrong.
Nemo
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