Website Vietnam goodbye Alexa!

Recently, security programs on computers like Symantec Antivirus, Internet Security . prevent users from installing Alexa Toolbar because it identifies this tool as spyware.

Meanwhile, more and more businesses are expecting their website to increase their rankings in Alexa rankings to demonstrate the popularity of the website, entailing many "trick" services to help the website increase its rankings. only in a short time. So should businesses believe in Alexa's measuring apparatus?

The answer is no. Currently, the vast majority of Vietnamese businesses rely entirely on Alexa to assess the popularity of a website. And accordingly, advertising value on the website is also measured by Alexa index. There have been quite a lot of detailed analysis articles on how Alexa works, scam services increase rankings . in newspapers and technology magazines. In this article, the author only synthesizes and analyzes the factors that Internet users in Vietnam should not rely solely on Alexa indicators.

Back since Alexa was founded in 1996, Alexa became a member of retailer Amazon.com in 1999. Through the statistics of web user activity, Alexa can make a list of ranking websites according to popularity.

Alexa Ranking - "Mixed" ranking

The Alexa rank index is combined from two factors: the number of users viewing pages (Page Views) and the number of visitors (Reach). Alexa Ranking ranks websites that are visited frequently, based on users who install the Alexa Toolbar toolbar. The ranking of the website will be displayed when users install Alexa Toolbar to access that website.

The main point of the problem lies here. Computers that do not have Alexa Toolbar installed, even if they access the website hundreds of times, are not counted once, even though the number of computers using Alexa Toolbar is about 10 million (1% compared to billions of people). use the Internet today). The reason is that the number of computers installing this toolbar in Vietnam is not worth it because Amazon.com does not have an online sales channel to Vietnam. Moreover, computers from other countries accessing Vietnamese websites are also minority, because mostly Vietnamese people have the ability to read Vietnamese.

The second reason is that when installing Alexa Toolbar, security programs on computers such as Symantec Antivirus, Internet Security . recognize this tool as spyware because its operation method is to use cookies to follow. Watch all activities of users accessing website.

Alexa Toolbar has been stopped by Symantec Antivirus right after downloading it

Moreover, Alexa Toolbar has only version for Internet Explorer and FireFox, so users of other browsers such as Opera and Safari also have to "give up", free counting!

The services that help increase Alexa rankings were also born in a rush, making businesses spend a lot of time and cost instead of focusing on developing the content and form of the website, these are the important factors that help increase traffic.

Thus, the ranking of Vietnamese websites is quite misleading on Alexa's index. Accuracy is only 20% for Vietnamese websites. One evidence is that Vietnamese websites do not use the tools to increase rankings, counterfeiting access . for ranking Alexa, the ranking has dropped quite a lot over time despite the fact that the number of websites visited is not impaired. reduced and may even increase.

Alternative solution

Counters of traffic statistics as well as visitor information are available on the website, but accurate but not trusted by advertising partners. Therefore, depending on the business model, cost and popularity, each website may choose reputable and paid statistical service providers such as ComScore, Hitwise, Nielsen // NetRatings, Netcraft , Ranking.com, Quantcast.

Google Analytics provides information about users' access sources and those
Search queries on the website for webmaster to capture and aggregate.

A free solution that is currently being noticed by webmasters is Google Analytics, completely free. Although Google Analytics does not evaluate 100% correctly, it allows detailed statistics of multiple access figures, pageview volume, visitor information . even if the website has multiple sub domains (subdomains) with the main level. tall body. Google Analytics metrics provide easy aggregation, detail, and can be exported in a variety of formats for statistics. Just a Google account (Gmail) is able to sign up for the Google Analytics service.

Vietnamese businesses that have websites should use a few more access statistics services and other rankings to ensure accuracy instead of focusing on Alexa. Can use Google Analytics or other free services like StatCounter, ClickTracks Appetizer, eXTReMe Tracking, SiteMeter, Add Free Stats, Compete .

References: Vietnam PCWORLD Magazine, Saigon Entrepreneur Weekend.