Comments on: Social networking sites: who will be the real winner? http://www.techprnibbles.com/2008/06/social-networking-sites-who-will-be-the-real-winner/ * A nibble is half a computing byte. A Tech PR Nibble is an insight or idea that can lead to conversation, a big idea or influence for a brand. The shared thinking of the global Ogilvy PR technology practice community; dedicated to Technology and Beyond. Participants in our social media world. Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:28:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: vineet agarwal http://www.techprnibbles.com/2008/06/social-networking-sites-who-will-be-the-real-winner/comment-page-1/#comment-113 vineet agarwal Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:32:16 +0000 http://www.techprnibbles.com/?p=77#comment-113 i agree with the brent. i agree with the brent.

]]> By: Brent http://www.techprnibbles.com/2008/06/social-networking-sites-who-will-be-the-real-winner/comment-page-1/#comment-64 Brent Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:19:02 +0000 http://www.techprnibbles.com/?p=77#comment-64 I wouldn't put too much faith into any "benchmarks" that come from Alexa.com. They've always been pretty unreliable, however years ago I remember the site could be found in almost every client-side or entry-level SEO report. This was usually because they either lacked any type of analytical software or didn't know how to derive meaning from them. More recently Alexa.com has gotten a lot of press for their blatant lack of updates... they're worse off than twitter is when you look at the uptime! http://www.centernetworks.com/alexa-outage http://www.centernetworks.com/alexa-stops-counting In a similar light I would also not put all my chips in any other "benchmark" sources. An example could be how I had a client's website go from a Google PageRank of 6 down to a 3 almost overnight. We found out it was due to a link buried deep within the site which no longer went to the intended target (the website had let their domain expire and it was now an adult-XXX site). Because of the site linking to this "bad neighborhood," the PageRank suffered. It took 2 months to regain the previous ranking after fixing the link but even then most SEM/SEO managers will complain about the way in which they determine your site's rank. Every now and then you'll read (on SEM forums) about someone claiming that their rank dropped after they added non-google affiliate advertising only to see it jump back up after removing it..... regardless of if that's the case, it doesn't seem very reliable to me. BTW, because sites like Alexa rely on users installing their toolbar, whatever ranking they do come up with will be swayed based on the demographics of the typical alexa.com user... which in your example could be the reason why it reported that Facebook was more popular than MySpace. I wouldn’t put too much faith into any “benchmarks” that come from Alexa.com. They’ve always been pretty unreliable, however years ago I remember the site could be found in almost every client-side or entry-level SEO report. This was usually because they either lacked any type of analytical software or didn’t know how to derive meaning from them.
More recently Alexa.com has gotten a lot of press for their blatant lack of updates… they’re worse off than twitter is when you look at the uptime!

http://www.centernetworks.com/alexa-outage

http://www.centernetworks.com/alexa-stops-counting

In a similar light I would also not put all my chips in any other “benchmark” sources. An example could be how I had a client’s website go from a Google PageRank of 6 down to a 3 almost overnight. We found out it was due to a link buried deep within the site which no longer went to the intended target (the website had let their domain expire and it was now an adult-XXX site). Because of the site linking to this “bad neighborhood,” the PageRank suffered. It took 2 months to regain the previous ranking after fixing the link but even then most SEM/SEO managers will complain about the way in which they determine your site’s rank.

Every now and then you’ll read (on SEM forums) about someone claiming that their rank dropped after they added non-google affiliate advertising only to see it jump back up after removing it….. regardless of if that’s the case, it doesn’t seem very reliable to me.

BTW, because sites like Alexa rely on users installing their toolbar, whatever ranking they do come up with will be swayed based on the demographics of the typical alexa.com user… which in your example could be the reason why it reported that Facebook was more popular than MySpace.

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