How reliable are Alexa rankings?
 

For small websites I mean?

I've just had some little bitch start slating me on another forum saying I'm lying about conversion rates and traffic numbers because I have a low Alexa rank.

I know my own conversion rates and my traffic numbers, and I couldn't really care less about what he thinks, but it got me thinking

Just how much can we take of Alexa's rankings as gospel?

not very reliable, especially for small websites

I thought as much.

But noooo, him and all of his 3 post experience would not believe

Thanks for clearing it up for moi

PS - Sweet display pic!!

I thought as much.

But noooo, him and all of his 3 post experience would not believe

Thanks for clearing it up for moi

PS - Sweet avatar

IMO not much since data is aggregated only from users of alexa toolbar...

what he said

in an 1-10 scale, -18. And that in a very good day. I have this site that is growing exponentially duplicating its own traffic every month and not only that they are far from the numbers, but according to Alexa the site is going down :1orglaugh

Quantcast and Compete are more reliable, but site owners need to add their script, so it's reliable only for sites that have it, although for sites that don't have it they take a quite decent guess

My alexa rating has a downward trend for the last week or so while google is showing a large increase in traffic.

It is total gash. A massively skewed demographic. Although it is the ONLY indicator we have, so we have to clutch onto it, like Neilson ratings.

Utterly arse, but better than nothing at all.

i think its good my alexa is less than 300,000:thumbsup

What he said.

About reliable as an American automobile.

You can see some trends on it but on small sites It's very unreliable.