large spike in 2+2 traffic rankings...what gives?

[theRealMacoy]

RE: Musing about 2+2 internet traffic.

Specifically: The major spike in 2+2 internet traffic data in late March...what gives?


Some of you will remember Mason's celebratory posting regarding 2+2's passing of cardplayer on Alexa's internet traffic rankings.

link to Mason's post

If you have never checked it out Alexa's web rankings are worth a look.

Alex's rankings of 2+2

They estimate internet traffic to web sites using people with the Alexa toolbar as their sampling population.

The 2+2 traffic graph on Alexa shows two significant increases in traffic. The first, a steady and significant increase in overall traffic beginning after Christmas and the second a major spike in late March.

[image]http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=379&h=216&r=6m&y=r&u=twopl ustwo.com/&u=[/image]

There are obviously many reasons for the different trends. I think however the major spike in March is most likely explained by Mason's post itself as it coincides exactly with the surge. More people were exposed to Alexa (as I was) via this post and likely many joined their sampling poplulation (by downloading the toolbar).

Alexa offers a very intruiging service, however there are obvious biases inherent in their sampling population, which affect the subsequent rankings.

Take home message....the more 2+2ers that download the toolbar the more the traffic estimate will be artificially inflated (particularly when this happens in a short period of time). Also subsequent posts about Alexa by Mason or other 2+2 bigwigs would likey further the trend.

Cheers and yay once again for 2+2's long-term gains,
The Real Macoy

...sorry but i can't seem to get the graph image to work?....

[chiachu]

off topic post (sorry)

that duck in your avitar looks familiar...
you dont happen to use that as a weight for your cards when you play live do you?

[gonores]

Late March was when metafilter.com posted a link to the 5-year-olds thread. I'm certain that accounts for most of the spike.

[Vincent Lepore]

Late march is when Vince Lepore and Smoothcall began making regular posts.

Vince

[BWebb]

I think I uncovered it:

Link

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Late March was when metafilter.com posted a link to the 5-year-olds thread. I'm certain that accounts for most of the spike.

[/ QUOTE ]I am pretty sure this is it. for a week or so, there was rountinely 100+ viewers in OOT every day, all day long.

[theRealMacoy]

thanks guys,

gonores and cracka...i stand corrected
i appreciate the info as i was wondering what
acounted for the spike

cheers,
the Real Macoy

[theRealMacoy]

chiachu,

nope, not me
i don't use a fancy card cover
but i do own many ducks

the Real Macoy