Let’s stipulate that Alexa is a horrible way to measure traffic for sites in the long tail of the distribution.
But when you say someone desperately needs traffic, it might be a good idea to check if a blog that has not posted regularly since June 11th because of a family illness is doing worse than your site with many authors posting regularly….
Yes, the site with multiple authors posting regularly is only doing slightly better in US traffic than the one that has one author and has been largely dormant since June and worse overall. Does it hurt to be that stupid?
Maybe typing in “illinoisreview.typepad.com” would give a truer reading for Illinois Review traffic?
Which sort of misses the point—Alexa doesn’t work for sites in the long tail of the distribution. Suggesting that Pakistan accounts for a significant chunk of my traffic is silly and trying to compare my traffic when I’ve been not blogging for over a month is even sillier. The point is that Alexa is a dumb site to even reference and doing so now, makes even less sense.
Archie, try looking for stats on the right blog:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/illinoisreview.typepad.com
Pride cometh before the fall, as they say.
And you demonstrate the worst of journalism if you do not retract this post.
Jill,
You prove Arch’s point as to how poor Alexa is as a reference point. Readers can use both “illinoisreview.com” and “illinoisreview.typepad.com” to access the site, yet Alexa does not account for this fact. The one stats page shows a 3mos. increase of 171% while the other shows a decline of 29%…
Even for “archpundit.com” and “archpundit.wordpress.com” there is a big difference in stats, yet Alexa does not discern this distinction.
That said, it’s glaring how diligently you’ve been avoiding Arch’s original point with this blog ranking nonsense….
Look Jill! Over there! Someone’s buying condoms! Booga Booga!
Better wave your bloody fetuses at him.
Is anyone retracting the bit about Pakistan being a huge source of my traffic?
No. I think my point and my integrity wins here.
Or I could go through the blogosphere ecosystem or any other of the numerous ranking and find different results, but comparing my traffic from a period where I’ve essentially taken a month off to a site that isn’t taking any time off is a bit silly and stupid.
[…] response to Ms. Stanek’s odd reference to blog ranks, Arch points out that his blog and their’s are essentially tied, even though his has been all but dormant for […]
Now Arch, you’re just being silly here. As Strongbad says, the Internet is a place where nothing happens, as you’ve just proven. Perhaps if you just added a few more animated gif’s and a long Flash intro to your website then you’d be even bigger in Pakistan. Or at least with some guy named Stan.
Take care of your family. Best wishes.
Reference for the uninitiated.