Which numbers are in the galactic neighborhood of being the right numbers?
I hear Alexa ranks thrown around with regularity, and I do it all the time myself. Everyone knows that its ranking system is far from perfect… and yet it still plays an important role in how websites are thought about, and even valued. There are a number of other third-party website traffic analytics tools that you can install or utilize – Site Meter, Compete, and Quantcast just to name three – and all will show different takes on a website’s relative popularity. So which one gives the right take?
The “beef” today between Andrew Baron and Jason Calacanis over whether or not Calacanis’ Mahalo has hit a traffic plateau proves more than anything that numbers remain very much in the eye of the beholder.
A wide ranging, intriguing, and at times heated discussion on this topic spread over Twitter, Techmeme, and FriendFeed today. While there were many sides to the story – including a number of brutal salvos between Calacanis and Baron that became quite personal – my overall take was that you could make the case either way.
That is, look at Alexa and Compete and it’s easy to conclude that Mahalo traffic has indeed peaked out, at least for the time being. However, bring in Quantcast and hear out Calacanis on non-US traffic growth and the normality of summer doldrums, and you can easily see things in a completely different light. Add to that the fact that we can’t look at Google Analytics or Mahalo’s raw server logs, and you really start to get into murky territory on knowing who is right, wrong, or simply dazed and confused (that’s me!).
