Testing the Accuracy of Visitor Data from Alexa, Compete, Google Trends, Doubleclick & Quantcast |
| Testing the Accuracy of Visitor Data from Alexa, Compete, Google Trends, Doubleclick & Quantcast Posted: 09 Jan 2012 03:28 PM PST Posted by randfish SEOmoz.org had 13.8mm visits from 6.25mm unique visitors last year (2011). Those numbers are pretty exciting, but what's not exciting is the external perception created by third-parties like Compete, Alexa, Quantcast, Doubleclick and Google Trends for Websites. These sites report massively lower and wrongly trending data - and SEOmoz isn't alone in experiencing this frustration. We're among dozens of sites I've talked to who've gotten emails and comments lamenting our poor growth or crummy year thanks to these horrifically inaccurate services. Here's a screenshot of our actual traffic from Google Analytics: Now let's look at the comparison to each of those services: Above is Alexa's estimate of SEOmoz's web traffic for the past few months. It's hard to tell how accurate they are, because they're not showing any exact numbers, only "percent" of "reach." They do correctly note that traffic was down in December (the last two weeks of the year were very slow for us due to the holidays, which is a good thing - even SEOs deserve a break) :-) Historically, Alexa showed a much longer timespan and much more inaccurate data, at one point estimating that our traffic had dropped year-over-year since 2009. I've had well respected VC funds reach out and ask why we were struggling and whether we felt the SEO market was drying up because of those charts... Now, Alexa's ranking us as the 472nd most popular site in the world, which is definitely way, way off. Next up is Compete.com's estimate of SEOmoz's traffic. They're much more specific, but tragically, way off the mark. For a time, I'd hoped Compete would be a much better competitor to Alexa, but those hopes died a few years back. This chart isn't just wrong, it's directionally backward (we grew when they showed us shrinking and shrunk where they show us spiking at year-end) and off by almost two full orders of magnitude (our daily traffic is about 2X what they estimate our monthly traffic to be). How anyone can trust that data is beyond me, since you can easily compare many site who publish their traffic details (as we do) against Compete and see this discrepency. To be fair, I've heard that for the top 1-2,000 most popular sites on the web, they're not bad, though I can't personally confirm this. Quantcast's estimate of traffic looks equally terrible to Compete. It's directionally wrong and off by multiple orders of magnitude as well. Quantcast's saving grace is their "Quantified" program, which shows actual, truly accurate and measured numbers for sites that opt-in. I wish they'd stick to that model exclusively rather than providing these random guesses on sites they've not included in the program, though. I'm also really struggling to understand how 17,671 unique people could create only 11,005 visits... That's a brain teaser. Google's my last, best hope, and since they capture such a large percentage of sites' traffic in Google Analytics, I'd expect they have a pretty excellent data-modeling system to work off. Apparently, that belief is mistaken. Google's by no means as bad as Compete or Quantcast (and possibly better than Alexa), but it's still way off. The directional data is sort-of close, but the daily unique visitors count shows at ~200K in December. Our analytics says it's ~47K daily or 722K for that month. Since Trends and Doubleclick are both under Google's operating umbrella, you might be tempted to think they use the same data... In fact, Doubleclick Ad Planner's estimate of Moz traffic and Google Trends for Websites appear to have at least slightly different numbers (hard to tell for sure based on GG Trends' incomplete graphs). One thing I can tell for sure - neither is accurate, nor even directionally correct. The over-time charts don't quite match each other (though they're close-ish); it looks like Doubleclick is showing higher traffic to SEOmoz generally than Trends for Websites. The closest data point is their estimated time on site, but I'm not sure I can give them credit for that. If you put on a blindfold and throw enough darts, one of them will probably get close to the board. It's hard not to feel that way about these numbers, too. Now here's the rub: Recently, Ani López wrote about Comparing Google Trends for Websites vs. Google Analytics Data and showed a few examples that suggested greater accuracy than what we see with SEOmoz (and OpenSiteExplorer, too FYI). Thus, I'm asking for two favors from you to help get a better sense for the relative usefulness of these tools. The first is to take the quick survey linked-to below: The second is to, if possible, take screenshots of your own analytics vs. Trends/DoubleClick/Compete/Quantcast/Alexa and share them in the comments below. For anyone who puts together a compelling side-by-side, I'll happily include links in this blog post to your site and to the images showing your traffic vs. what these third parties report. Hopefully, that incentive can help spur transparency from those of you willing and able to share some broad site stats. Thanks as always for your help - looking forward to getting a broader view of these tools' performance. For now, I'd remain highly skeptical, but we might revisit the topic if we get very compelling data in the survey and the in the comments (otherwise, I'll just update this post at the end of the week with the survey results, and since they're anonymous, provide full data). |
| 10 Extraordinary Examples of Effective Link Bait Posted: 09 Jan 2012 02:04 AM PST Posted by jrcooper This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. Despite what most SEOs will tell you, it’s not easy to create outstanding content that people will want to link to. So many “SEOs” make it seem like there’s a key on your keyboard that magically turns what you just wrote into something link worthy. In reality, it’s never that simple. I'm not one to keep throwing mud at the wall until it sticks. You can continuously tell someone to go create exceptional content, or you can actually show them an example. Because, being the sensible person I am, I'd rather choose the second option, here are 10 fantastic examples of link bait and what makes them so spectacular. Note: PA stands for Page Authority, LRD stands for linking root domains, and TL stands for total links. Also, I didn't include .gov, .edu, or any other pieces of link bait from SEOmoz besides the first one below. The same goes for .edu and .gov sites.
1. SEOmoz’s Search Ranking Factors – PA: 91. LRD: 2,727. TL: 17,750. What is it? This is an article on the different search ranking factors by your very own SEOmoz. With yearly updates, 132 contributors, and roughly 20 pages of content on one URL, this gives information on what search engines are measuring in order to rank websites. If you call yourself an SEO and you haven't read this, then I suggest you quietly open this up, read it twice, and hope no one noticed. Why was it so successful? This link bait was highly successful because of the visualizations, depth of content, the trust of the contributors involved, and the website it was hosted on (SEOmoz is very influential in the SEO community). While the content is great, there's also a far greater reason for all of the links: SEOmoz didn’t do the promotion; the contributors did. In the future, this should be your go to example for creating a collaborative study.
2. Xkcd's Radiation Dose Chart - PA: 88. LRD: 988. TL: 5,863.What is it? This is a chart about the radiation a person absorbs from various sources. This is a great way to visualize how much radiation poisoning you can get from things like airplane flights, x-rays, and CT scans. Why was it successful? Being able to visualize something that's hard to grasp is one of your best friends when creating link bait. By using tiny blocks to put together just how many "siverts" are in these different sources of radiation, this chart makes this concept very easy to understand. The key takeaway here is that if you can get people to understand your content, and actually read it all, the likelihood of them sharing and linking to it increases dramatically.
3. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch – PA: 86. LRD: 631. TL: 9,149.What is it? If you ever need a guide on what seafood to choose based on where you live or travel, this is your go to place. You can choose to download eight different regional guides, with two of them also available in Spanish. Why was it so successful? The main reason this was so successful was because of the outright awesome information these guides provide. They’re updated regularly (most recently July 2011) and they’re free for anyone that wants them. It also doesn’t hurt to have a top notch interactive map to help you choose the guide best for you.
4. SEOBook’s 101 Link Popularity Tips – PA: 84. LRD: 723. TL: 2,843.What is it? Created by Aaron Wall & Andy Hagans, this is a list of 101 different link building strategies, and even though it’s over five years old, it still provides some of the best link building tips on the Web. To add a little humor, the last 30 tips are bad ways to build links. Why was it successful? Everyone loves lists. It’s that simple. It got traction in the right community, it’s easy to read, and it’s on a subject that people want to know about.
5. Mark Nottingham’s RSS Tutorial - PA: 83. LRD: 540. TL: 7,033.What is it? Published in 2005, this was and still is the go to resource to find out more about why your blog should be utilizing an RSS feed. It gives detailed analysis and can be translated to Brazilian and Portuguese (see links at the bottom). Why was it successful? When this was published, the post gave in-depth information on a relatively unexplored subject that people wanted to know about. It also provides ready-to-go snippets of code, making the content very actionable. On another note, one reason for its success that you might have noticed is the design of the website. There's no clutter and it's very easy to read.
6. OKCupid's Politics Test - PA: 82. LRD: 456. TL: 1,274.What is it? OKCupid, a free online dating site, put together a test on what your political views are based on what your answers are to each question. This is one of many tests featured on OKCupid's site. Why was it successful? People like personalized content, such as tests and quizzes. In this case, people like to see how they scored, and they want to compare their score with their friends (thus, they link to it asking others to do it and share their results). There's also a bit of controversy involved with politics (just a bit?), which never hurts in terms of link juice. 7. Yoast's Wordpress SEO Guide - PA: 81. LRD: 701. TL: 2,642.What is it? This is an extensive guide to implementing SEO on the Wordpress CMS created by Joost de Valk. Why was it successful? It's the go-to resource because it has the best information on this subject all in one place. It's as simple as that. The information is instructional and easy to understand, and it's helpful in areas that people want to know about. With a resource like this, people will often cite information in it, and with each citation comes yet another link. 8. SEJ's Social Media Infographic - PA: 81. LRD: 282. TL: 876.What is it? This is an infographic by Search Engine Journal on the growth of social media. This is a great visualization on the progress social media has made and what lies in the future according to statistical data. Why was it successful? In a nutshell, it's visually appealing. Putting such a great amount of raw data into an easy, understandable visualization is something I'd go out of my way to share. It also helps when it's initially displayed to a large audience (SEJ is a fairly popular SEO site if you didn't already know). I'd also like to point out that although it may not have the sheer number of links some of the other pieces of link bait have, it's the quality of the links that count. This link bait got links from the Huffington Post, Reuters, and The Next Web. 9. WUIW's Water Conservation Tips - PA: 77. LRD: 347. TL: 1,536.What is it? This is a list of 112 different ways to conserve water. The tips are very short and provide quick, actionable information. Why was it successful? The first reason is because of each item's brevity. This list is quite easy to read and scan because each tip isn't a paragraph, it's a sentence. Another cool thing they did was highlight one specific tip out of every 10 or so. They enlarged the number, added a picture, and bolded the text. This puts emphasis on the specific item highlighted, and it's a great way to segment the list into something readable. Also, the post is listed in the website's navigation bar, making it easy to locate. 10. Thomson's Evolution of Music - PA: 77. LRD: 80. TL: 955.What is it? This is a visualization of how music has traveled over the past 200 years. As you play the timeline, new genres pop up around the world and you can see how they've moved and connected throughout the world. Why was it successful? Hmm. How wasn't it? If you aren't blown away, I'm sorry, because if this won't impress you, nothing will. The two main reasons it was successful are the quality of the visualization and the social share buttons on the page. Making it easy to share gets the page in front of more eyes, and more eyes means more links. Yes, the link metrics show that it's not as successful as some of the ones above, but this is only because of how new this piece of content is.
ConclusionSo, what can we conclude about link bait from these 10 examples?
Thanks for reading! Make sure you give this post a thumbs up if you enjoyed it! If you want to find out more about me, check out my link building blog and make sure you follow me on twitter. |
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