I hate Compete.com | Yakezie Reader Insights | Yakezie Forums

I see they just posted their October metrics, and they are WAY off on me again.  They have my uniques for October at 1800, whereas Google Analytics has me at 3400.  (5162 visits,3400 unique).  They have been underestimating me month after month.

 

Just had to complain

Kris

http://www.everydaytipsandthoughts.com

They actually have me down for more than 1,000 MORE uniques in October than Google does. I have no idea where they get there numbers, since I don't have any code or script from them on my site (at least none that I know of).

Yeah, I wouldn't care about the inaccuracy of compete.com if it wasn't being used to rank blogs!  Oh well!

Yeah their numbers are WAY off.  I had over 3000 hits to one article with 1400 unique visitors.  But they list total uniques as half of what Google analytics list.  I don't use their numbers.

 

They also link only 8 links into my site and only 3 key phrases as entrance points to my site.  All wrong from Google webmaster, analytics and the WordPress stat plugin that I use.

I think if you focus mainly on writing great content and for SEO optimization, everything else should align themselves accordingly.

The problem is that all "public" stats or ranking site are doing a very poor job.

 

Compete doesn't even count 1/3 of my visits for TheDividendGuyBlog.com (I have 45,000 visits last month and they show 15,000).

 

Unfortunately, it's the same thing happening with Alexa rank (thedividendguyblog.com is at 237K… with that many visits and a PR5 sigh).

 

The only stats that count is your own google analytics ;-)… or sitemeters which seems to be pretty accurate too!

Money Reasons said:

Wow, they really underestimated my traffic this past update!  They have my monthly traffic estimated at 800, when in reality, it's at least 5,000 close to 6,000… 

 

How can they call themselves a traffic counter when they are that far off?  I mean that's like 6 times off of the 5,000 number (which is conservative)!!!

 

Why are both wisebread and moneycrashers using that stat?  If I were them, I'd create a homegrown counter and have any site that wants in their stats link to them!  That would be a big win for them!

 

Go figure,…

 

Don

 

Below is the generic form letter that I got from them. 

 

Compete Support, Dec-20 12:02 pm (EST):

Hi,

Thank you for your e-mail. There are a number of reasons that the numbers are less than expected.

First off, our service is a panel based metrics system that uses the raw click stream behavior of approximately 2 million US based users, then scales up these metrics to publish the information you see on compete.com. Our panel accounts for approximately 1% of the US browsing population and differs from local analytics in that we're tracking actual user behavior. This means that we capture data that local analtyics cannot, filling in blind-spots to questions you have on your own site as well as giving you the ability to find invaluable information about your competition.

When comparing your local analytics to compete data you should keep in mind that since they're collected in completely different ways the numbers should not match, rather they should trend in a similar fashion. If you're interested in learning more about our methodology feel free to download our methodology whitepaper: http://media.compete.com/site_…..dology.pdf.

In your instance, we're estimating your information as your site falls in the bottom part of the top million sites on the internet. If you take note of the top right corner on your domain's site profile you'll notice an orange notification box that has our "small sample" text, allowing users to know that we are estimating your traffic. While this situation is not ideal, especially when speaking to your prospective clients and partners, we find the best way to approach this is to give them the strait answers in educating them about the differences between panel and local metrics and the nuances of the way we collect data. You may want to also let them know that our information is US only, if you get a considerable amount of international traffic it will not be accounted for on compete.com. Additionally, we don't currently collect mobile device data for mobile oriented sites, only web based traffic. If you have any other questions that may pertain to the collection of data and your site I'm happy to answer them.

Best of luck in your endeavors, we appreciate that you're using compete.com and are looking forward to working with you. Let us know if you have any other questions

Best,

Compete Support

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I wish someone with influence would get money crashers/wisebread to dump the stat since it is off ridiculously for me too.

Maybe they should proof read their form letter and tell them how to spell 'strait'….