Keeping up with Internet Stats: Some of Robert Lackie’s Favorites—What are yours?
May 20, 2008 at 7:56 pm Robert J. Lackie 3 comments
Last week, I did a quick presentation at my own Rider University Libraries for the CJRLC Tech Group May meeting attendees, and some of the sites I discussed and demonstrated were sites I subscribe to or visit regularly to keep up with various Internet statistics—that is, where to go to find out who’s hot, who’s not, and who’s got the search market cornered, so that I can invest big bucks. 😉
OK, seriously, I have no real $$ to invest, but I do invest a lot of time on the Web, and when I am interested in knowing more about specific or general U.S. or world Internet traffic and other stats, I consistently go to my favorite Web locations (or have them come to me—I just love RSS!). I continually poll those who attend my sessions to see who they think dominate certain subject or topic areas, including general search engines’ market share of searches. I also am somewhat surprised that many people that I talk to at workshops, conferences, and other librarian and teacher get-togethers do not know about these stat sites, or at least much about them. When I show them how I know what I do about some of this, most quickly jot down the URLs or efficiently add them to their bookmarks or RSS feed readers. And since I just answered three messages about this, I figured—sounds like this could be a good blog post before I head off on a long drive to Arkansas for my son’s wedding! So, here they are, in no particular order of preference:
Alexa – They have a lot to offer, but I love their Traffic Rankings section with it’s “Top 500 Sites” and “Movers & Shakers,” as well as their Directory with its “Popular Categories,” and I like their blog, too.
comScore – They also keep me coming back, and I really like their blog and Data Center, but it is their Press Releases section that I constantly review—I think you will really appreciate these.
Nielsen//NetRatings – Definitely in my top three, I like their Free Data and Rankings section, but I find myself constantly coming back to their Press Releases section (you can do a search or scroll down the page to find previous releases).
So, do you like these as much as I do? Do you have different favorites for keeping up with Internet stats that you would like to share? I am sure that everyone would love to hear from you!
P.S. If you are feeling somewhat nostalgic (life from 15 months ago), look at the current sites above and compare it to a Library Garden post I did on U.S. Web search traffic from Jan. 2007 from comScore.
-Robert Lackie
Technorati Tags: Internet statistics, search engines, site popularity, traffic ranking, Library Garden
Entry filed under: Search Tools. Tags: Internet statistics, site popularity, traffic ranking.
Library Garden 
1.
David | May 21, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Great post Robert! Thanks for appearing at our last Tech Group meeting!
2.
Robert J. Lackie | May 22, 2008 at 9:00 am
Thanks, Dave–it was my pleasure!
3.
Anonymous | May 30, 2008 at 6:50 am
Alexa.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. It is a website which provides information on traffic levels for websites. The Alexa rank is measured according to the amount of users who’ve visited a website with the Alexa toolbar installed. Alexa toolbar is an application developed by Alexa Internet. Its primary use is to measure website statistics. This toolbar collects as well as gives some valuable information. Once you install it, the Alexa toolbar monitors all your surfing and collects information about what domains you visit. They use this data to rank web sites. The traffic rank they assign to websites is based on 3 months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of other users and is a combined measure of page views and users. Webmasters, advertisers and ad networks use your blog’s Alexa rank as a gauge to determine the worth of a link on your website. If you depend on link or site selling as a form of monetization you’ll definitely want to increase your Alexa rank, because it’ll increase your bargaining power when it comes to ad pricing.