A few moments ago we released some exciting changes to Alexa's Traffic Detail pages. We are very pleased with the results and we think you will be too:
Where are users coming from Geographically?
This one is a biggie. We are now reporting where a site's users are from, geographically speaking. So for example, you could see that 73.6% of Orkut.com's users come from Brazil. Or that 33.9% of Emusic.com's users come from the United States.
What is a site's traffic rank in other countries?
We are also reporting what a site's ranking is in different countries. This can be pretty enlightening. You would see, for example, that Hi5.com is ranked as the 3rd most popular site on the web in Portugal, Peru, El Salvador, and 5 other countries... Who knew?
Reach Percentages
For the last several years Alexa's Reach stats have been expressed as Reach per Million... I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've had to explain what that means. We learned our lesson. Reach is now being described simply as a percentage. For example, you could see that 0.0135% of Internet users visit simpy.com on average. I have to admit that the numbers are really more meaningful to me and provide more perspective about how much traffic a site really gets.
Today, or Yesterday
Here's something we hear every now and then: Why does Alexa's traffic data say "Today" when what they really mean is Yesterday... Hmmm... good point. We were saying what the rank was today, which was based on data gathered yesterday. Easy change. done.
I expect that this new traffic data will be particularly useful to potential advertisers. It will help to size up an audience before making an ad buy. I am truly excited about where we've been and where we are going with the Alexa Traffic data. The panel is as large and diverse as it has ever been and we continue to make meaningful improvements to the data and feature-set.
I hope you enjoy the new changes. Let us know your thoughts.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Hi5 - The Biggest Site You've Never Heard Of
We've all heard of MySpace and are by now sick of hearing about it's fantastic growth and community of millions of users. The stories keep on coming. It is the poster-child for the web 2.0 post-bubble success of the Web. But have you ever heard of Hi5?
No? Well, you should have. Except that the mainstream media don't cover it. At all. So, what is Hi5? Hi5 is essentially MySpace for the rest of the world. Where MySpace is by and large US-based, with around 60% of their users coming from the US, Hi5 has a decidedly International user base, with only 3% of their users coming from the US. In fact, according to internal stats from Alexa, Hi5 has more users in Ecuador than the US. Hi5 is incredibly popular in a number of different countries. In Portugal, Hi5 is ranked as the 3rd most popular site, behind only msn.com and google.pt and Hi5 is ranked inside the top 5 in no less than 27 different countries.
So, with only 3% of their user-base in the U.S., there is no way they can compete with MySpace, right? Not so fast. Just because Hi5 lacks a large U.S.-based user-base doesn't mean that they don't have a huge audience. Hi5's user base is currently running at almost half of MySpace's astronomic user figures, and growing quickly. If international growth trends continue, Hi5 may catch up to MySpace in no time at all.
Hi5 isn't the only popular social networking site to be ignored by the MSM. There are actually quite a few others. Here is a quick run-down of the social networking sites:
In the meanwhile, I'm going to sign up for Hi5 and brush up on my Portuguese.
No? Well, you should have. Except that the mainstream media don't cover it. At all. So, what is Hi5? Hi5 is essentially MySpace for the rest of the world. Where MySpace is by and large US-based, with around 60% of their users coming from the US, Hi5 has a decidedly International user base, with only 3% of their users coming from the US. In fact, according to internal stats from Alexa, Hi5 has more users in Ecuador than the US. Hi5 is incredibly popular in a number of different countries. In Portugal, Hi5 is ranked as the 3rd most popular site, behind only msn.com and google.pt and Hi5 is ranked inside the top 5 in no less than 27 different countries.
So, with only 3% of their user-base in the U.S., there is no way they can compete with MySpace, right? Not so fast. Just because Hi5 lacks a large U.S.-based user-base doesn't mean that they don't have a huge audience. Hi5's user base is currently running at almost half of MySpace's astronomic user figures, and growing quickly. If international growth trends continue, Hi5 may catch up to MySpace in no time at all.
Hi5 isn't the only popular social networking site to be ignored by the MSM. There are actually quite a few others. Here is a quick run-down of the social networking sites:
- myspace.com - Alexa Rank: 6 - 60% of users from the U.S.
- Orkut.com - Alexa Rank: 8 - 74% of their users are from Brazil. It is actually the most popular site in Brazil, by a long shot.
- Hi5.com - Alexa Rank: 23 - Popular with Portuguese and Spanish countries. 14% of users from Portugal.
- Facebook.com - Alexa Rank: 34 - 75% of their users come from the United States and Canada.
- Friendster.com - Alexa Rank: 38 - 78% of their users are from Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia
- Bebo.com - Alexa Rank: 174 (and growing) - 37% of users are in the U.K.
In the meanwhile, I'm going to sign up for Hi5 and brush up on my Portuguese.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Alexa's Traffic Panel Is Increasingly Global
In November 2004 I posted about Alexa's geographic breakdown -- who's using the toolbar and where. At the time we were surprised at just how global we had become. The percent of users who were in the United States had dropped to just 37%.
Well, two years later, that trend continues. While we have as many U.S. users as ever, on a strict percentage basis, they are declining as the Alexa Toolbar grows in popularity across the globe.
I thought I'd update the chart so you can see for yourself.
I dug around the web a bit looking for some stats about the estimated actual distribution of web users across the globe and found this site. They break it down by region, and estimate that North America now accounts for only 21.2% of Internet users worldwide. I don't know if they are right, but when I add up Alexa's toolbars from the United States, Canada and Mexico I get 18%. Asia is apparently supposed to account for 35.6% of Internet users worldwide. Again, it is hard to know if their numbers are correct, but after adding up the Alexa Toolbar users from top 10 Asian countries I was at 30%.
Historically Alexa has avoided doing any "normalization" of our data. What this meant was that a toolbar user was a toolbar user and was counted in our stats. We didn't pick and choose users. But, as the Internet has grown into a global phenomenon we've had to make some adjustments from time to time. Now we are actually very picky. In fact, the vast majority of toolbar users are not counted at all. Ironically, by filtering out a large number of Alexa Toolbar users from our panel the data is actually improved. The Alexa panel more closely matches a typical distribution of Internet users worldwide.
Still, even with normalization, this global distribution has some interesting side-effects. I was contacted about a month ago by a colleague who had noticed that Alexa had shown a steady decline of his site's reach over the course of the year, which stood in stark contrast to his own internal stats which showed a steady increase in users. The answer to the apparent discrepancy is that Alexa's Reach number is not the same thing as visitors. The reach is counting the percent of Internet users worldwide who visit a site. In the case of my colleague's site, his global reach was declining, not because he was losing visitors, but because the rest of the Web was growing so quickly. As people are coming online in China, Korea, Vietnam, Brazil and countless other countries, they are counted as users in Alexa's panel, but they aren't visiting his site. So, in essence, his percent of global traffic is declining, even as his traffic goes up.
We will continue to investigate ways to improve the Alexa panel. I personally would like to find a solution that would provide a better measure of Visitors that doesn't suffer from the issues that I see with Reach. Having country panels might be a good start.
Well, two years later, that trend continues. While we have as many U.S. users as ever, on a strict percentage basis, they are declining as the Alexa Toolbar grows in popularity across the globe.
I thought I'd update the chart so you can see for yourself.
| Country | Users | (previously) |
|---|---|---|
| China | 16.44% | (18.46%) |
| United States | 14.28% | (36.91%) |
| Brazil | 3.82% | N/A |
| Japan | 3.64% | (3.80%) |
| United Kingdom | 3.11% | (4.49%) |
| Taiwan | 2.91% | (1.72%) |
| Hong Kong | 2.55% | (4.59%) |
I dug around the web a bit looking for some stats about the estimated actual distribution of web users across the globe and found this site. They break it down by region, and estimate that North America now accounts for only 21.2% of Internet users worldwide. I don't know if they are right, but when I add up Alexa's toolbars from the United States, Canada and Mexico I get 18%. Asia is apparently supposed to account for 35.6% of Internet users worldwide. Again, it is hard to know if their numbers are correct, but after adding up the Alexa Toolbar users from top 10 Asian countries I was at 30%.
Historically Alexa has avoided doing any "normalization" of our data. What this meant was that a toolbar user was a toolbar user and was counted in our stats. We didn't pick and choose users. But, as the Internet has grown into a global phenomenon we've had to make some adjustments from time to time. Now we are actually very picky. In fact, the vast majority of toolbar users are not counted at all. Ironically, by filtering out a large number of Alexa Toolbar users from our panel the data is actually improved. The Alexa panel more closely matches a typical distribution of Internet users worldwide.
Still, even with normalization, this global distribution has some interesting side-effects. I was contacted about a month ago by a colleague who had noticed that Alexa had shown a steady decline of his site's reach over the course of the year, which stood in stark contrast to his own internal stats which showed a steady increase in users. The answer to the apparent discrepancy is that Alexa's Reach number is not the same thing as visitors. The reach is counting the percent of Internet users worldwide who visit a site. In the case of my colleague's site, his global reach was declining, not because he was losing visitors, but because the rest of the Web was growing so quickly. As people are coming online in China, Korea, Vietnam, Brazil and countless other countries, they are counted as users in Alexa's panel, but they aren't visiting his site. So, in essence, his percent of global traffic is declining, even as his traffic goes up.
We will continue to investigate ways to improve the Alexa panel. I personally would like to find a solution that would provide a better measure of Visitors that doesn't suffer from the issues that I see with Reach. Having country panels might be a good start.
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