As many WUWT readers know, I have been using alexa.com for quite sometime to gauge the performance of WUWT. Reader “Pat” brought this recent strange disparity to my attention. When you see things like the Drudge report plummet and MSNBC soar, you know immediately that something isn’t right:
Those who run watchdog news websites are scratching their heads and trying to make sense of the latest data released by a California company that measures website traffic.
According to data for July through September, almost every major website – from WND to the Drudge Report and Breitbart – saw its rankings drop on Alexa.com while pro-government sites mostly went up.
Source: WND
The claim seems to be true when you look at Alexa’s publicly reported traffic graphs. Here’s the Drudge Report according to Alexa:
(Lower numbers are better, for example, Google is #1)
![drudge[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drudge1.jpg?quality=83)
And here is MSNBC according to Alexa:
I find that hard to believe. I find this even harder to believe, Fox News according to Alexa:
![Alexa_Fox[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/alexa_fox1.jpg?quality=83)
And the Soros driven Center for American Progress, aka thinkprogress.org according to Alexa
The exception to that knee up for left leaning websites starting in September is CNN.com according to Alexa:
So, this may be some sort of reporting or tracking goof. But, the oddity does not stop there.
Now, look at WUWT compared to the eco-news website “Grist”, which we long ago surpassed.
First, here is WUWT according to Alexa. Note the same “knee” in the graph as seen on the Drudgereport earlier:
And here is grist.org according to Alexa. Same “knee”, opposite direction:
Hmmm.
My internal wordpress.com counter for WUWT shows that WUWT had its best month ever in total views, nearly 5 million:
And, WUWT’s best ever day in its seven year history was in September 2014:
Something is broken at Alexa that seems to favor one sort of website over another. What’s up with that?
It may have to do with this recent “upgrade” at Alexa that explains a new method of calculating its rankings based on what it says is a wider panel of viewers.
“We’re excited to announce that after a lot of hard work, the size of Alexa’s global traffic panel will be significantly increasing,” writes Leigh Katcher in the blog. “Over the next month we’ll be incorporating lots of new data points, which will help improve the accuracy of our metrics. As a reminder, our data panel is a sample of global Internet traffic used to calculate Alexa ranks and estimate non-Certified metrics.”
The blog posting continued, “With better data, we’ll be able to offer deeper insights into your site, your competitors’ site and overall traffic strategy. One immediate result of the additional data is that you may see your traffic rank fluctuate, especially for sites ranked greater than 100,000.”
One wonders how such an “upgrade” can affect one type of site more than others. In the WND article, they say the disparity even extends to things like Planned Parenthood versus Lifenews, two sites that offer politically opposing viewpoints.
Alexa rankings mean very little in the SEO industry-no one trusts them as they can be easily faked with bots, etc.. People aren’t exactly buying or selling websites based on Alexa ranking.
A clue is the countries traffic is coming from. If you have a site about American politics, and a lot of traffic from Uzbeckistan, something’s fishy.
This sounds like a puzzle for McIntyre, McKitrick and Jean S. If they can make sense of Mann’s dog’s breakfast, this is an evening’s work.
Mann, I get a new job and you are still complaining. Whiners…… I can’t win, I just reversed the graph by mistake!
At first blush, this seems like a simple data entry/formatting error. GIGO. Then again, knowing what we know of the IRSs serial abuses, nothing surprises me anymore. I’m hoping it’s the former.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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Newspeak!
The paqe views aren’t missing. They’re sitting at the bottom of the ocean (below 700 meters). 10,000 Hirosima page views per second, measured of course in K Joules or Manhattan Islands.
“Something is broken at Alexa that seems to favor one sort of website over another. What’s up with that?”
As a lifelong liberal, I used to laugh at wacko, paranoid conservatives. Now I’ve become one. Whatever’s “broken” might well be an honest mistake. But then again, nothing these days would surprise me.
The Occam’s razor explanation, given what they said in their announcement, is that they changed the demographics of their control groups. Dramatically. To a bunch of college kids.
The question is, exactly what was changed, and why. There’s probably a memo somewhere in the bowels of Alexa with a justification.
“As a lifelong liberal, I used to laugh at wacko, paranoid conservatives.”
Here’s a good one: “You can trust the CDC when they say there’s no public risk, they would NEVER lie to us about something as important as Ebola transmission, would they???”
This might also have something to do with it:
Conn. student: Conservative websites blocked by school
“Andrew Lampart of Woodbury asked the local board of education last week to explain why he couldn’t access websites such as ctgop.org, teaparty.org and those of right-to-life and gun-rights advocates.
Lampart, 18, says such sites were blocked when he tried to access them on his tablet and a Nonnewaug High School computer, while websites with opposing views — including ctdems.org, plannedparenthood.org and banhandgunsnow.org — weren’t blocked.”
Common Core will feature climate change and evolutionary theory as its main academic science objectives for the classroom, to the exclusion of other sciences such as biology and chemistry. If schools and gov’t traffic are emphasized, and they have blocked websites, then this will affect traffic.
That may be a valid point.
It would have to be a lot of schools to make the change so noticeable. But it does fit the pattern.
Oddly enough common core will teach evolution but preach white privilege. When white privilege can be best understood as evolution since Asians have it also and evolved under similar conditions.
Social Darwinism is a highly probable conclusion for evolutionary theory, as many critics have pointed out. This is true both logically and historically. For example:
http://youtu.be/8ceTeJeUnNw?t=5m38s
However, Anubis, it is not helpful to start rumors about what Common Core says about genetic or ethnic superiority. Can you provide any evidence?
The bankroller and overseer of Common Core is Bill Gates. Contrary to what you say, Anubis, the science curricula focuses on global warming, sustainability, and population control.
Have any of you looked in your JUNK folder in gmail? Gmail is dumping all republican funding requests and news letters there.
Is there a conservative version of gmail some where on the net?
Is this happening to democrat funding requests?
Remember, The Democrat Party, not democratic.
Dumocrat, huummmmm
My Yahoo mail sent 100 Republican funding requests to my junk mail. 90% of my junk mail folder is diverted NRC emails.
Alexa: The problem with changing the rules of measurement is that nothing you do *after* the change can be reasonably compared to what you have done *before* the change. You have just tossed out your entire work history.
The algoritm is working as intended.
Maybe Alexa added a data collection interface to an advertising company, but the ad company happens to be most popular on left-leaning web sites.
Some formal IRS employee found a new job.
Based on these data, and my internet traffic model built on CO2 forcing, WUWT will very likely (95% confidence) be viewer-free within the next 6 years.
Here’s to hoping that people who believe in a democratic-republic form of government, the US Constitution and conservative, capitalist-based ideals start putting their time and money into building alternatives that are truth based. The watermelons always seem to control information to, and education of, the masses (google, MSM, public schools, universities, government agencies, wiki, Hollywood, factcheck, etc). What’s it going to take for conservatives to grow some cahones, and start fighting back? Our way of life, our liberty, the upward mobility of minorities and the poor, and opportunities for our children and grand-children are at stake. Congrats to Anthony for doing more than his part (although apparently not in the last few months, haha). I’m trying to figure out ways I can make a difference more globally.
/sarc (for the first sentence)
Bruce
Yeah. I’m sure that the MSNBC website was shocking them in at the same time the cable network’s already abyssmal ratings are taking even deeper nose dives.
And from what I understand even those miserable numbers were padded by the recently discovered Neisen “bug.”
A few possible possibilities.
1 They’ve incorporated the “Fudge Factor” from the HarryReadme file into their calculations.
2 James Hansen is now their programmer.
3 CO2 has infiltrated the “clean room” that contains their servers.
4 Their servers are also used to generate climate models.
5 Somebody screwed up.
6 Gorebots are now counted.
7 Since everyone is equal but some people are more equal than others, they are counted twice (or more).
8 Windows XP users no longer count.
Did a Google search on “global warming”:
WUWT didn’t show until Page 10 of about 29,100,000 results (0.36 seconds), this is what was shown:
Yet another significant paper finds low climate sensitivity to …
wattsupwiththat.com/…/yet-another-significicant-pa…
Watts Up With That?
1 day ago – Assessment of global warming due to CO2 and solar influence … increasing CO2-concentration and a varying solar activity on global warming…
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Did a Google search on “climate change”:
WUWT didn’t show until Page 22 of about 69,000,000 results (0.45 seconds), this is what was shown:
Climate change:
Watts Up With That? | The world’s most viewed site on …
wattsupwiththat.com/
Watts Up With That?
But then,we are dealing with a science that in some cases has lost all sense of seriousness, such as the bonkers claim that “climate change” will start killing off…
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Did a Google search on “global warming skeptics” – (Skeptical Science came up #1)
WUWT came up #6 on page 1, About 1,050,000 results (0.29 seconds), this is what was shown:
Watts Up With That? | The world’s most viewed site on …
wattsupwiththat.com/
Watts Up With That?
Former meteorologist and weather expert Anthony Watts maintains this site, skeptical of the man-made global warming topic.
*************************************************************************
Just for what it’s worth – most people still do their searches using Google…
The new ‘algorethim’ has grafted on an upside down Tjalander series of data points.
Whatever the reasons, I don’t think Alexa rankings are going to have any affect on Chinese power stations burning coal.
Robust among the the politically manipulative is the axiom that “Perception is reality” (attributed to Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater) and therefore the tools of perception are considered high-priority targets among those whose interests are at odds with reality and must therefore depend upon deceit to gull, cully, and diddle the people they’re trying to control.
It has been a mistake for Mr. Watts – and other advocates of objectively truthful consideration of climate phenomena – to have relied upon the reports of services like Alexa with regard to boasts about the relative popularity of their online promulgations. Though it is comforting to know that one is not alone in assessing the preposterous bogosity of the anthropogenic global climate change fraud, it skates close to the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum – i.e., that you’re correct in debunking this flaming idiocy not only because the facts on the ground support your position but also because large numbers of other people share your opinion.
But the means of mensuration upon which we depend for observing the operations of the Internet are owned and operated by human beings who can themselves be manipulated into reporting falsely. Those conduits of information with track records of accuracy and therefore reliability are bound to draw the attention of the “Perception is reality” types.
And these people literally lie for a living. They’re better at it than we are. More practiced. High incentive. Zero moral scruples.
Those of us who value the dispassionate validity of honest observation – the foundation of scientific method – despise the political manipulators who depend upon warping popular perception away from objective reality to suit their purposes.
They’re the enemy of everything we hold dear, and there’s an old German proverb:
“Keiner kluger Krieger hält seinen Feind gering.”
Translates as:
“No wise warrior underestimates his enemy.”
I think I see a hockey stick.
J. Philip Peterson,
Those numbers are completely bogus. SkepticalScience has more traffic than WUWT??
There is no way. Here is Wolfram Alpha’s algorithm:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=wattsupwiththat.com+vs+www.skepticalscience.com
WUWT has ten times the traffic of SkS!
And here’s a comparison of WUWT vs SkS vs Michael Mann’s RealClimate:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=wattsupwiththat.com+vs+www.realclimate.org+vs+www.skepticalscience.com
Realclimate should just throw in the towel. They’re toast.
It seems like Alexa has learned to calculate web traffic the same way globalwarmists calculate temperatures:
If data doesn’t fit expectations, then the data is biased and must be corrected to comply with model outputs.
In the world of propaganda and manipulation, there is a crying need to have fiercely independent investigative reporters and a media prepared to expose any attempt to manipulate truth and public perception for political purposes.
When you consider the growing employment of propaganda agents (spin doctors) by all political parties and within media organisations this needs careful attention.
Truth and justice is a cornerstone of democracy and public confidence in that democratic process. Any attempt to undermine or counter truth or tip the balance in favour of propaganda, needs to be exposed by an active media dedicated to both investigation and wide attention so that Justice can be lawfully applied and erosion of personal liberty prevented?.