Cutts on Alexa

Posted by: Marketing Guy Date posted: May 17th, 2006 Published in: Advertising, Alexa, Ask, Google, MSN, Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation

Matt Cutts makes an interesting observation on Alexa data on his blog today.

Firstly that TV advertising doesn’t appear to have had any impact on traffic figures on Ask (and that the removal of Jeeves had a larger impact), also noting that TV advertising didn’t have much impact on MSN (search) traffic last year.

Secondly - the data has a webmaster bias (due to the fact that webmasters / SEOs are primary users of the toolbar - perhaps more so in the West though).

Surely the second observation skews the first? TV advertising isn’t targeted at webmasters or SEOs - it’s targeted at end users, who are largely oblivious to the issues and drama surrounding the search industry. With this in mind, Alexa traffic data isn’t likely to reflect the impact of traditional marketing campaigns at all.

Also noted in comments (and indeed on many forums, blogs and other sites over the years) - Alexa data is generally mince at the best of times and ain’t really worth the paper it’s printed on.

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