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Cn rank: 202,430.... 32,917.... 26,970... do stats programs just make up rankings?
Written by Allen Stern - June 3, 2007
About two months ago, Cn became a "quantified publisher" when I placed the Quantcast code on the site. Checking the stats today, it notes that the site's rank is: 32,917 right between two porn sites (WTF!). Interesting.
Anyway, after checking Quantcast's ranking for Cn, I popped over to the highly buzzed-about site Compete. Surely they will be pretty close right? Nope. Compete shows a rank of 202,430 with 6,000 visitors in April 2007. Blech. I also note that Compete now links over to AboutUs.org for more information. Double Blech.
And last but certainly not least, let's check Alexa. Certainly a company with a slogan of, "The Web Information Company" must have it right. They show Cn with a current rank of 26,970.
I know this is a simple comparison but it shows that these Web reporting applications are clearly not 100% correct and I still say the same thing I have said since the late '90s. Which is that I don't trust them for making deals. Alexa and Quantcast appear to be close but does that mean they are right? Compete seems the furthest off, especially with their monthly user count which is absolutely not correct.
Why do these inaccuracies affect Cn in the wallet? Because potential advertisers might check these sites and see that Cn has lower traffic numbers than I quote to them. Will we ever see lawsuits by companies who are affected by poor ranking and public analytics apps? I am guessing, yes.
Check our previous coverage of Quantcast, Compete and Alexa.
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Allen,
Dogster's rank is just above and just below porn sites too.
I would be very interested to know how many of the top 50,000 sites are pornographic. My guess right now would be at least 50%.
As a side note, I've found that Alexa has just completely lost it. Their tracking is no longer consistent even with trends. I consider it a completely usage tracking system.
Wow, so even the puppy paradise has porn around it. Might be something for Quantcast to consider.
I noticed you are quantified as well. I would suggest that they create a quantified list too because those of us who are quantified are sending them better data than their guesses but might be penalized by sites that "appear" to be higher in pv/rank.
Alexa is really poor. I used to love it when agencies would come solicit me in my old corporate role and try to use Alexa to validate their claims. Aah the old days of ripping an agency to shreds :)
I don't know if this is a sign, but they have not sold one ad yet from what I can tell.
What I find amazing is how horrible the "reputable" ones are, like ComScore and (especially) Nielsen. They might be more accurate on a relative scale, but I've seen numbers from them that are 2x to 3x lower than server logs. That's just not remotely acceptable, but that's what the big companies and investment bankers are putting their faith in.
I think Quantcast, though new, has the best idea though, because with their "verified" code they are basically as accurate as Google Analytics. If enough people use their code, they can do a much, much better job than Alexa or Compete for triangulating traffic, since they actually have HARD DATA to fall back on.
Of course, if and when Google comes out with "Google Stats" it'll decimate this market - I'm kind of surprised they haven't done it yet.
We spent a large chunk of our analytics budget on Hitwise data. Everyone wanted competitive info and their presentation was the best overall. But of course I questioned them everytime and got the same basic answer everytime. I like their people the best overall.
The issue with Quantcast is that the majority of sites are not certified which puts you and I in a difficult situation as our competitors who are not certified may appear higher in rank than us which could be false.
Quantcast needs several directories:
You also have to remember that some sites are ok without "verifying" their data.
I came across my Company's Information on Quantcast. I don't use them at all neither I ever signed up with them.
I am not sure how they got my company stats information and if I could ask them to remove it.
Compete is showing even better ranking for you now at 11,636.
For me, compete and alexa still showed possible figures. But QuantCast is showing totally false readings even after using their code. Even far away from Google Analytics.