WSJ – Feb 19 – "comScore says OKCupid had 735,000 unique visitors in Jan, up from 538,000 a year ago,” the Times reported. OKCupid CEO Sam Yagan “said comScore was significantly undercounting the site’s traffic.” He also supplied Google Analytics numbers that show a much higher monthly count – ~4.3M last month. ComScore and Nielsen have long said that sites’ own numbers overstate matters, because what look like unique U.S. visitors could be automated programs known as bots, or the same person using a different computer, or the same computer after cookies have been deleted, or logging in from overseas. "This is a longstanding dispute", said Matt Belkin, VP of emerging business for Omniture, which helps sites manage their traffic numbers. Other traffic monitors take different approaches. Compete uses a panel, like comScore and Nielsen, but also Internet service providers’ logs. Quantcast taps into its wide network of cookies embedded on partner sites to create a mathematical model to correct for all the factors that make cookies overstate traffic. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ
Hi All,
Unique U.S. visitors or unique visitors in general does not mean anything other than website traffic. The real measure is the quality of the traffic.
Many spammers or scammers (particularly from Africa, but also other countries) use proxy servers hosted in the U.S. and other countries, compromised computers in the U.S. and other countries, etc.)
Google analytics and other traffic monitors see this traffic coming from the U.S. and/or other countries, but they do not know the quality of that traffic.
I have had many spammers try and sign up on my site where the originating IP’s came from business’s in the U.S., Schools in the U.S. and in Europe, etc.
Hi All,
Unique U.S. visitors or unique visitors in general does not mean anything other than website traffic. The real measure is the quality of the traffic.
Many spammers or scammers (particularly from Africa, but also other countries) use proxy servers hosted in the U.S. and other countries, compromised computers in the U.S. and other countries, etc.)
Google analytics and other traffic monitors see this traffic coming from the U.S. and/or other countries, but they do not know the quality of that traffic.
I have had many spammers try and sign up on my site where the originating IP’s came from business’s in the U.S., Schools in the U.S. and in Europe, etc.
Traffic numbers are mostly used for advertisers to plan media buys. Anyone about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars isn’t going to rely on Comscore numbers alone.
This whole “who’s site is bigger” is a waste of time. All Match needs to know is if you get over say 3 million months visitors, then they will consider buying you. For everyone else, stats are ego trips unless triangulated against several source, and even then, you’re measuring trends, not absolute numbers.
I’m looking at Zoosk, Match and SinglesNet Comscore stats right now. Hard to believe what I see, Zoosk is positively shredding the top 10 sites in terms of traffic.
I’ve seen the OKC stats, they are plastered all over their office walls, along with every imaginable measurable metric. Some of it may be international/scammer, so let’s remove 15% across the board.
Traffic numbers are mostly used for advertisers to plan media buys. Anyone about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars isn’t going to rely on Comscore numbers alone.
This whole “who’s site is bigger” is a waste of time. All Match needs to know is if you get over say 3 million months visitors, then they will consider buying you. For everyone else, stats are ego trips unless triangulated against several source, and even then, you’re measuring trends, not absolute numbers.
I’m looking at Zoosk, Match and SinglesNet Comscore stats right now. Hard to believe what I see, Zoosk is positively shredding the top 10 sites in terms of traffic.
I’ve seen the OKC stats, they are plastered all over their office walls, along with every imaginable measurable metric. Some of it may be international/scammer, so let’s remove 15% across the board.