Traffic

What is Alexa?

Alexa is the the industry standard in rating web sites for traffic. Quite simply they have the industry accepted system for determining which web sites actually get the most visits. They record this information daily, and report the information to anyone. (Alexa.com is owned now by Amazon.com)

Why is it important?

This is critical because without Alexa, there would be no independent source of rating the amount of visitor traffic a particular web site receives. Advertisers and others with a financial interest simply must have a way to judge whether a site receives regular and sustained web visits. Alexa gives them this information.

How is Alexa similar to Nielsen and Arbitron?

Nielsen rates television. Arbitron rates radio. Billions of dollars in advertising has been allocated based on their ratings systems. Alexa is essentially doing the same thing. They have created a way to measure traffic that is second to none. It is the industry accepted standard. They use a sample universe to judge what the much larger universe is either listening to, watching or logging on to. Not perfect - but the best available.

Why are many of our competitors rated so poorly?

Their are just two possible answers:

1. They happen to have visitors who just are not in Alexa's universe.
2. More likely, they have very few web visitors.

You might ask why is QualityStocks different?

We spend thousands of dollars per month promoting the QualityStocks site. We advertise through Google, Yahoo, WooEB, M2, TransWorldNews and many other means to get QualityStocks in front of as many net users as we can in our industry. That does not come cheap. We also spend thousands more each year on writers, web staff, developers, artists and others to build our brand. While expensive, this provides the quality content that brings visitors to our web site.

The QualityStocks Toolbar

The Alexa Toolbar offers the unique ability to provide real-time information about the sites you visit along with other enhanced browsing features.

Get The QualityStocks' Toolbar

See Alexa Traffic Report

Why is Quantcast Important to QualityStocks?

Quantcast.com is the latest site to tip its name into the web analysis market, offering a free service to webmasters and a large database of statistics for advertisers. Its goal is stated boldly; to even the market and provide a more accurate representation of a website's current statistics.

The website strives for a worthy cause. It is very true that advertising on the web can be a hit and miss affair. How do we weigh up the accuracy of statistics when they can be so susceptible to black-hat alteration and quick changes? Quantcast aims to settle this issue once and for all.

Genuine publishers can come and register their websites for detailed statistical analysis. In return, advertisers can use the service to outline their marketing strategy and gain fair insight into the best websites for their cause. Quantcast offers excellent demographic analysis and the unbiased third party concept helps to increase the productivity of the advertisers. It cancels out the mistrust of where a site's bloated statistics might have come from. Advertisers get a fairer price and publishers get a platform for their service. It's a win-win situation, you could say.

So how does Quantcast actually function?

Ratings were available for over 200 million websites at the time of this review. That, we'd have to say, caters for the large majority of websites that hold any kind of significance on the web - and then some.

A basic search facility allows the user to locate statistics for any of these websites. The results will return information on monthly unique visitors, age, gender and even ethnicity demographics. You'll find a lengthy list of active keywords for each website, along with Quantcast's suggestions for similar sites.

The statistics are visually presented via a mixture of pie charts and graphs. You have your basic overall ranking mechanism, which works to rank the entire web. We couldn't even begin to point our fingers on an algorithm to justify such rankings, but it certainly seems a more accurate representation than, say, Alexa, which judges ranking by web browsers with its own personal toolbar.

Publishers can use Quantcast to add their own profiles and increase the likelihood of striking up a deal with an advertiser. The Quantcast profile can then be used as a reference by the selling webmaster to conclusively prove that his statistics are what he says they are.

For detailed analysis, publishers are asked to add a small snippet of JavaScript code to the pages in their website. This enables enhanced tracking and further statistics which are available on demand by the advertisers.

It should be noted that the website is geared towards usage in the United States. Most of the breakdown analysis is focused on this region, although coverage is available on a worldwide basis. We would give priority recommendation to the Quantcast service if you are based in the US. You can still make use of the website if you're located elsewhere, but a few of the features will be redundant.

There is a large demand for web services detailing traffic statistics and SEM-friendly information. Quantcast is a worthy addition to the group and should be checked out, whether you're looking to market a website from scratch or refine an existing strategy.

QualityStocks Traffic Summary

QualityStocks Traffic Graphics

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