Alexa versus Quantcast versus Compete

"You can't manage what you don't measure" has been an adage as long as there's been management. It's also human nature to rank, compare, and contrast...I'm sure that the buzz around the water cooler in Egypt was, "So, are these the tallest pyramids, or have the Aztecs taken first again?"

I'm a big fan of Google Analytics and spend time every day looking for new ways to cut the data. There are insights in GA data that you just can't get anywhere else short of hiring a propeller-head to build some industrial-strength custom code for your site. The one thing that GA lacks, though, is competitive data, and for that I turn to sites like Compete, Alexa, and Quantcast. They all have strengths and weaknesses, and I use all of them for slightly different purposes. All three try to measure traffic and demographics on web sites and display them in a way that lets you measure performance.

Compete.com is the vaguest of the three in terms of where they get their data. According to their site, they use a "unique methodology" that relies on work done by "experts in the fields of mathematics, statistics and the data sciences." I have to admit, it reminds me of the end of Raider of the Lost Ark. They apparently have "Top. People." working on this. Kidding aside, Compete lets you compare five sites in terms of visitors, time spent on the site, and a few other parameters. I use it for a quick look at how KidPub is stacking up against my competitors. Data are presented in monthly chunks.

Here's how KidPub and Stone Soup compare at Compete.com:



Alexa relies on user participation to generate the bulk of its data. Web surfers must install the Alexa toolbar into their browser, which send daa back to Alexa for crunching. The advantage of this is a good degree of granularity...Alexa can say with a fair amount of confidence how long a user stayed on a site, how many pages the viewed, and so on. The huge drawback is that the data sample is self-selecting...people who a) know about the Alexa toolbar (maybe because I put a link to it on my site) and b) are willing to install it. I won't install it, and most tech-aware users won't, either. The data source is less vague that Compete's, but I still have to take a big grain of salt when evaluating numbers on Alexa, especially for sites that are not in the top 100,000 in terms of traffic. Still, I look at the data to see if there are nuggets to glean.

Quantcast is relatively new and is taking on Alexa and Compete head-on. Quantcast's big advantage is that they use both Google analytics style data gathering, where you need to install a snippet of Javascript on your pages, and correlation of any other bits of data they can find. For example, when a user comes from JoeSchmoe.com to KidPub, there's data in the HTTP header that indicates where the user was before they hit KidPub (assuming they came via a lnk), and Quantcast uses that to record traffic information about JoeSchmoe, even if they don't have the Javascript snippet installed. They also try to provide demographic information...age of user, income level, and so on...though personally I think that sort of data is a bit suspect. They also allow you to compare sites and have an interesting 'media planner' tool that lets you find sites that meet specific demographics.

Here's a Quantcast chart of demographics for KidPub:





All three are free and they complement each other in terms of what data you see. If I had to pick only one I'd go with Quantcast for the simple reason that I trust their data source. As you might expect, the reports are similar to Google Analytics...they should be, as they rely on similar data gathering techniques. I use Quantcast to track the 'rank' of Kidpub (we are, according to Quantcast, the 112,582nd most popular site on the web right now), and Compete to get a quick monthly look at competitive trends. Alexa is last on my list, and I don't really trust their data, but I do look at it weekly to validate my other sources.

Google Analytics tells me intimitate details about what's happening on my own site, and the other three give me hints about what my competititors are up to. All of it is valuable data.