New report on most popular inspection related websites. Are you ranked?

[Nick Gromicko]

http://www.nachi.org/alexasitecomparison.htm

[Scott Gilligan, CMI]

http://www.accuracyinspections.com
February 8th Alexa Ranking: 1,742,547

Site has been up for aproximately 3 months. Domain is only a couple months older.

Doing good so far?

[Stephen W. Stanczyk]

Yep, www.safehaveninspections.com coming in at 3,636,181.

Nice job Scott. Getting that high so quick is a lot of work.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

#15 which is Scott Widick's site has existed for about a month. Very nice!

[Russell Buchanan]

Hey Nick,
Why use Alexa when its ranking model is flawed and depends on the inspector or visitor using an Alexa toolbar? I use to think this was impressive until I realized it could be manipulated. For instance if I added an Alexa toolbar to my software users (I wouldn't), it would artifically catapult me into higher rankings.

Instead, why don't you use www.compete.com ? It has a more accurate traffic ranking.

For example, Pit HomeGauge against the top 5 in Alexa and see the difference. Go ahead, I dare ya

Alexa seems to be smoke and mirrors

http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Russell,

If you look at http://www.compete.com/help#snp2 you will see that Compete.com also uses a toolbar, it's just a different one, so you end up with the same situation. I'm sure Nick uses Alex as it's the internet standard. Of course it's not perfect, no site that performs similar analysis can be as they all have to make estimations based on their sample set, just like political polls.

As far as I know no one has added the Alexa Toolbar to their software, I agree that would be extermely poor (especially for the users).

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Also, looking at http://tools.compete.com/ which is where their toolbar is. They are an ad toolbar trying to get you to purchase stuff.

Deal Light automatically lights up if there are any special promotions or coupons that can save you money on the web site

[David P. Valley]

Mine hasn't changed in the last year....

www.masscertifiedhomeinspections.com has a traffic rank of: 2,416,212

[Russell Buchanan]

Thanks Dom, but actually their criteria is different and cannot be manipulated like ALexa can http://www.compete.com/help#snp1

Read down about the middle and you'll see that Compete.com is more accurate. They also have a people count below the chart once you do a comparison. For instance in May 07 HomeGauge had 25,000 and NACHI had 35,000 "

(from competes' site) People Counts are also known as unique visitors - they only count a person once no matter how many times they visit a site in a given month. People Counts are typically used to determine how popular a site is.

I'm just saying that why use an inferior model when there is one that does more, compares more and provides a more accurate number?

[Dominic J. Maricic]

It can still be manipulated, it would just takes more work. The other big problem when trying to rank InterNACHI and other companies is that Compete.com only looks at US users. That would eliminate the 9 other countries that our software is sold in right now (I'm sure HG sells in even more than that), as well as all the users in other countries NACHI has (especially Canada). So that would definitely affect the ranking.

I'm sure HG has more visitors than our site right now, especially since you have some websites hosted at homegauge.com/username, but I'm not sure switching is in the best interest for Nick. Maybe he could show both.

You are right about them looking at two different things. Alex is looking at page views. For example the average user on this messageboard probably looks at 100 pages a day where another association with no forum they'd probably only look at 5 pages. It really depends on what you want to be showing off. Alexa is good to show how much time people are spending on your site as you can see how many pages they are looking at.

[Russell Buchanan]

I realize you are new and I naturally have an edge based on our company has been evolving since 2000. It is just the fact that compete provides more validity with the different search criteria than Alexa. You and me are a great example. You are number 4 and I rank number 5. Now why is that? Is it because you have more traffic? More popularity? Or is it an Alexa toolbar? Compete wants you to use there toolbar sure, but without the toolbar they still formulate a ranking that is more accurate. In January Compete.com says I had 17,000 people counts.

Alexa is just a poor measurement and it is not accurate. Compete may not be either but it is more accurate and provides more data. NACHI still looks great with compete and I ask Nick why not start using that model as it is more reliable?

[John McKenna]

Alexa and Complete are both flawed and can be manipulated... but useful overall.
http://socialnewswatch.com/alexa-vs-compete/

Who knows.?

[Russell Buchanan]

Originally Posted by jmckenna1

Alexa and Complete are both flawed and can be manipulated... but useful overall.
http://socialnewswatch.com/alexa-vs-compete/

Who knows.?

Your pretty good at finding things on that there internet John!

When Compete.com entered the fray in 2000, they wanted to “…help create a more trusted, transparent, and valuable Internet.” They wanted to compete with what alexa had to offer and become the authority on website comparisons. If you go by their numbers, they are now that authority.

While they have their flaws they seem to be the new internet standard, www.compete.com

[John McKenna]

Originally Posted by rbuchanan1

Your pretty good at finding things on that there internet John!

When Compete.com entered the fray in 2000, they wanted to “…help create a more trusted, transparent, and valuable Internet.” They wanted to compete with what alexa had to offer and become the authority on website comparisons. If you go by their numbers, they are now that authority.

While they have their flaws they seem to be the new internet standard, www.compete.com

OK... I'm open to consider anything.

Where is some verification to the fact that complete.com is the new standard, other
than their own web page? Fair question... OK?

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Russell,

While I totally agree that Alexa isn't totally accurate it's a bit silly to say that any of these companies are around just to '…help create a more trusted, transparent, and valuable Internet.' They are around to make money, just like Alexa, your or I. They charge for advanced data on their site, they have ads inside of their toolbar, just as alexa gets a percentage of money from companies like Amazon every time you do a search in their bar and buy something.

To be totally honest I had never even heard of compete.com until you mentioned it and I taught website design for 7 years (along with programming and math). During that time we always used Alexa as a comparison tool. I do like the data that compete.com offers, and will start checking it out myself as a tool I use. But I need to prove to myself the data is somewhat valid first.

In comparison to my google analytics for our website though compete.com is very off. It is showing less than 1/4 of the actual unique visitors we received last month, which to me is pretty far off. Check with your own stats, maybe it's doing the same for you. Google Analytics is going to be spot on since it's loaded onto every page of my site.

The other biggest problem still remains that they only show hits from the United States. I'd say if anything, list both.

Dominic