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?....