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Alexa, Amazon's Most Flawed Idea

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ain't-that-the-truth dept.

Rub3X writes "The Alexa ranking system is naturally flawed. The data should never be treated as accurate, as it's easily manipulated, and not supported for most browsers in the world. It's an estimate, and nothing more. " I've been saying that forever, but unfortunately for me, since it's a number on a website that is considered "Real" to some, I'm supposed to take it seriously. I imagine this is a problem for many webmasters out there.

3 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. File Upload Sites & their ranking by in2mind · · Score: 4, Informative

    Services like Megaupload.com force Non-American/Non-european users to install Alexa toolbar to download the file.

    That explains why Alexa has file-upload sites such as Megaupload,rapidshare in the top 10 sites of most countries...

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    Wincopy
  2. Re:Error in article by hclyff · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to this, there is no FF version. There are third party plugins for monitoring only.

  3. Polling data in general by MrNougat · · Score: 2, Informative

    Whenever you conduct a poll, and that's what Alexa is doing, you are always excluding data from those who do not respond to polls (for whatever reason). It's an inherent flaw in polling.

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    Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk