Compete Is In A Total Nosedive, According To Compete. When it comes to public-facing web analytics, basically, they all suck.
We in the press are sometimes forced to use tools like Alexa and Compete for comparison’s sake, but using either for absolute numbers is extremely flawed and basically worthless. Naturally, those companies always disagree with us when we say such things. But a new bit of information may put that disagreement to the test. The Compete chart for Compete.com is perfect. If the chart is to be believed, Compete is in a total tailspin. For all I know, these numbers are correct. For what it’s worth, Alexa doesn’t seem to have enough data to rank themselves. Update: And here are the numbers from comScore (a much, much more reliable service) showing a similar plunge in U.S. numbers (below).
[thanks David] If You Cite Compete Or Alexa For Anything Besides Making Fun Of Them, You’re A Moron. Earlier today, I was checking out some new questions in the TechCrunch topic area on Quora.
One in particular caught my eye: How was TechCrunch traffic affected by their major redesign in July 2011? This has been something I’ve seen asked here and there given the radical changes we implemented — and, I assume, given the audience issues Gawker faced after their recent redesign. Mostly, people seem to want to know: is TechCrunch tanking? I was set to weigh in, when I noticed that someone else already had. This person (not affiliated with TechCrunch) painted a picture in which our site was essentially crashing and burning since the redesign (the answer has since been removed by Quora, presumably due to down-voting).
Dear Internet, I thought we’ve been over this? TechCrunch will set a new all-time record for traffic this month (both in uniques and pageviews), breaking the previous record — set last month. As for Alexa, which is owned by Amazon, I have no idea what’s wrong with them. Bribery, Porn, and Spam Are the Path to Riches in the App World. As money floods into their market, and the stakes get ever higher, app makers are getting paranoid.
Paranoid that competitors are buying traffic spikes, using porn to attract users, and spamming everyone and their mom on the way to the top of the leaderboards. Above all, app makers are paranoid that the competition is playing dirty better than they are — tricking users out of their time and investors out of their money. “I do believe people try to manipulate their download numbers and chart position around a financing,” says Matt Murphy, an investment partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “It seems everybody raising money has just hit some inflection in their numbers, so either they wait until that happens or manufacture it.” If the web is dead, and the open ecosystem of the browser is being replaced by tightly controlled apps, then it’s more than just venture capitalists and software creators who should take heed of such questionable practices.
‘It’s like your coming-out party.