Alexa调整网站排名统计方式 参考其他数据
全球网站流量统计机构Alexa近日宣布，已对其网站排名系统统计方式进行重大调整，即不再完全依赖Alexa工具条所反馈的流量数据，而会同时参考“多个数据来源”，以提高其全球网站流量排名的权威性。
在此之前，Alexa仅收集安装了Alexa工具栏计算机所反馈的各种网站访问信息，然后在此基础上发布其全球网站流量排名榜单。但考虑很多计算机用户并不愿意安装Alexa工具条，因此Alexa排名的权威性引起了外界质疑。Alexa称，鉴于已对原有排名方式进行重大调整，今后将不再提供往年相应统计数据，用户目前仅能查询过去9个月的排名资料。
Alexa没有公开承认原统计方式存在不足，仅表示新方式与旧方式“存在差异”。Alexa在一份声明中称：“你们（以前）的排名并没有错误，只是新方式与以前稍有不同。对那些愿意安装Alexa工具条的用户来说，他们的浏览习惯与普通网民存在一些差异，我们应该指出这种不同。”
Alexa接着表示，使用新型统计方式后，主流网站的原有排名并不会受到重大影响，但公司正在评估新排名系统的各项功能，以准确、全面体现全球网民的上网习惯。
http://www.alexa.com/site/company/announcement
When Alexa began displaying rankings in 1998 it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. We generated the rankings through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use the Alexa Toolbar. Since that time we’ve been delighted to see that the Alexa Rankings have become a yardstick by which website popularity is measured. We are grateful to the thousands of people who come to Alexa.com each day to check the Alexa Rankings.
In recent months we’ve heard from our Alexa users that understanding Internet usage beyond Alexa Toolbar users was increasingly of interest. Ask and you shall receive!
We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.
You gave us many other suggestions as well, and we are working hard to implement them. We won’t tell any secrets just yet, but you can expect to see new features rolled out over the coming weeks and months.
Below are a few common questions we anticipate from the Alexa community, along with our answers.
My site’s ranking has changed. Was it wrong before?
Your ranking wasn’t wrong before, but it was different. Alexa toolbar users’ interests and surfing habits could differ from those of the general population in a number of ways, and we described some of those possible differences on our website. While the vast majority of sites’ rankings were unaffected by such differences, we’ve worked hard on our new ranking system to adjust for situations in which they could matter.
The new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users.
Why are the long range graphs gone? I can only get 9 months of historical data.
We are recalculating historic traffic data and will continue to add it over the coming weeks. We apologize for the inconvenience, but should have several years of data back on line shortly.
Will you change the rankings again?
We are constantly working to ensure that we provide the most useful data that we can. We will continue to fine tune our algorithms but don’t foresee any additional big changes. If you think something is amiss please let us know.
I liked the old rankings better. Are they still available somewhere?
We liked the old rankings as well. However, we developed the new system in response to the huge number of requests we got from users like you, and now that it’s done we like it even better. We hope you will too.
We think that having more than one ranking system at a time would be confusing, so we have removed the old rankings.
Do you want to know what I think about this?
Definitely. We’ve been collecting suggestions and ideas for months now, and would love to hear more. If you have thoughts on what we’ve done so far, or ideas on what we should do next, please share them with us.
