Your website ranking algorithm is so flawed as to be virtually useless as a barometer of online traffic. It is so poor that it is in fact misleading and should require you to add a disclaimer along the lines of "our traffic estimates are accurate to plus or minus 100%" - 100% of the time.
In layman's terms your traffic rankings are broke.
I suppose the odd beginner may take your stats seriously but the majority of experienced Internet marketers have come to realize that your algorithm is in need of serious adjustment. Anyone with more than a handful of sites online has seen the absurdity of your rankings.
To whit...
The following two sites have roughly the same amount of traffic. The first site averages 87 visitors a day. You deem that good enough for an Alexa rank of 250,000 give or take. The second site averages 102 visitors a day and you rank it 2,577,000 give or take. It appears that because the first site (with less traffic) averages 19 returning visitors daily this is enough to rank 2,250,000 spots higher than the second site (that has more visitors) but only averages 2 returning visitors a day.
Click all images to enlarge.
This site above has an Alexa ranking of 250,000 give or take.
This site above has an Alexa ranking of 2,577,000 give or take.
What else could effect the vast difference in rankings...
The first site has a bounce rate of 54%.
16% of visitors stay longer than an hour.
92% of traffic is from referrals.
8% of traffic is from search (mostly Google).
The site does get social network traffic (Stumbleupon, Digg etc).
The second site has a bounce rate of (strangely enough) 54%.
No visitor stays longer than 5 minutes.
55% of traffic is from referrals.
45% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
But let's not stop there.
The site below has an Alexa rank of 1,169,000 give or take. It averages 252 Unique visitors a day. Only 8 returning visitors...
This site has a bounce rate of 60%.
Very few visitors stay longer than 5 minutes.
21% of traffic is from referrals.
79% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
I find this interesting because you are ranking a site with 252 Uniques a day 1,169,000 ish while ranking a site with 87 Uniques a day at 250,000 ish. Better yet the site with 252 Uniques a day just barely ranks better than the site below which is ranked 1,177,000 ish.
Yup... a site with just 18 Uniques a day ranks just marginally behind a site with 252 uniques.
This site has a bounce rate of 85%.
13% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (3% longer than an hour)
2% of traffic is from referrals.
98% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
Oh yes I know - you mention that your stats are more "accurate" for sites with greater amounts of traffic - sites that make your top 100,000. Hmmmm...
You may find this interesting.
The site below is ranked 70,000 ish and only averages 289 Uniques a day. It has 30 more Uniques per day than the 1,169,000 ish ranked site. Wow.
But let's see...
It has an average of 80 returning visitors a day as opposed to 8 visits a day to the 1,169,000 ranked site.
and...
This site has a bounce rate of 57%.
22% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (11% longer than an hour)
87% of traffic is from referrals.
13% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
It has a relatively large amount of social network traffic in relation to it's low overall traffic.
And how about a site that really does get a moderate amount of traffic?
The site below is ranked 170,000 ish.
It averages 2500 Uniques daily and has an average of 357 returning visitors a day - more returnees than the other sites listed have in total traffic. Scratch my assumption that returning visitors is the key to gaming you. It should rank in the top 10,000 if that was the case.
So why isn't this site in the top 100k at a minimum? It has vastly more daily traffic than all the other sites combined.
This site has a bounce rate of 66%.
12% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (3% longer than an hour)
14% of traffic is from referrals.
86% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
It has a relatively low amount of social network traffic in relation to it's moderate overall traffic.
I could go on and ask why another site of mine averages 5500 Uniques a day and only ranks 132,000 ish. Or why my best site, in spite of 10,000 plus Uniques a day manages to top out on your scale at a whopping 204,000 ish?
I could ask but I don't really need to.
Every site I own that get's the majority of it's traffic from the search engines ranks quite poorly.
Any site that receives the majority of it's traffic from referrals and social networks ranks inordinately high - far higher than its traffic warrants.
Moreover any site that draws predominantly social network traffic ranks absurdly high.
The other noticeable factor is that sites that garner more page views per visitor rank higher than those that don't - regardless of overall traffic.
I am not a social blogger but I'm hoping that many of my readers (when I post this on my MMO blog) who do receive social traffic will be kind enough to provide their stats in my comments (keeping their sites anonymous of course) in order to pin down just what social traffic is required to game your stats. We know you love Digg, Stumbleupon and Twitter traffic but it will be interesting to see if a pattern emerges highlighting the easiest way to game you.
Why should we game you?
Because you are a joke and it might be a good thing to warn unwary advertisers that believe your stats have some credibility.
The best way to discredit you is by gaming you.
Btw... you might want to add another disclaimer to your site stating that your stats completely ignore the single largest source of traffic online - the search engines - and as a result your sample is based solely on sites that engage in social networking. Ultimately your stats are simply a measure of which sites get the most traffic from Digg etc and are not even remotely accurate in terms of the overall total traffic online.
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