I am often asked to give potential advertisers the number of visitors to MyPE and tend to give them the number based on the Google Analytics report, not thinking that there are a number of sections of the MyPE site that are not carrying the Google Analytics code. So, what happens is that the numbers I report are actually less than the real figure.
In the back of my mind, of course, is the thought that people may think that I am lying about the reported numbers so I always tell them to look at a few of the many other web sites that promise to ‘spy on’ and report just how popular web sites all over the world are.
Web site owners tend to rely heavily on Google Analytics as it has lots of fancy reporting and analytical tools but forget that the reporting is reliant upon the analytics code being properly deployed across ALL pages of a web site AND making contact with the Google Analytics server for every page load.
The stats programmes installed on your server (like AWStats on Cpanel) are far more accurate but far less ‘sexy’ than Google Analytics. These will also report more accurately on sub domains. For example the www.forum.mype.co.za sub domain on MyPE (which has no real activity on it in terms of additional content) received just over 2 000 unique visitors during March 2013. Add the other ‘forgotten’ MyPE areas such as the Gallery, Wiki, Mobile Business Directory and Mobile Classifieds to the mix and we could easily add another 10 000 unique visitors to the numbers reported by Google Ananlytics.
Up until now the first comparison statistics site I have sent people to is Alexa – which gives a fairly accurate estimate of the MyPE trafic.
Alexa is wrong in terms of; Bounce Rate, Demographics, Page Views. Surprisingly enough Alexa is pretty accurate when it comes to Page Views per user, though.
And now, along comes another web site promising to report accurately on visitor numbers and presence – BigWebStats.
Enter a URL and BigWebStats will aggregate data from several sources (including Alexa) and display that data on one page, including visitor information, social engagement, keyword rankings, usability, security, a list of similar sites, on and off-page SEO information, domain and technology information.
I ran MyPE through BigWebStats and got the following statistics back:
BigWebStats have got the number of daily visitors hopelessly wrong but, curiously, the number of page views per visitor (at 18.9) is almost spot on for the News Section of MyPE.
Also BigWebStats seems to have a problem querying the .co.za domain registrar for accurate information about the age of a domain – domain age is thought to be an important search engine ranking factor – the older a domain the more likely that the domain owner is trustworthy.
So I turned to a local web site that has two domains for a comparison. The Herald has a local .co.za domain – www.theherald.co.za which points to www.peherald.com (i.e. when you type in www.theherald.co.za you are redirected to the site www.peherald.com).
The results were interesting as BigWebStats reported two different sets of statistics for what is essentially the same web site – see below:
What seems odd is that they have a screenshot for the .co.za web site but not for the .com one. In addition: I have directed a question to BigWebStats asking for an explanation of the above and will update here if and when I get a reply.
BigWebStats also have a Web Site Valuation Calculator which I ran the above three sites through:
- Peherald.com: Daily Revenue – $0, Website Worth – $46,623
- Theherald.co.za: Daily Revenue – $50, Website Worth – $37,153
- Mype.co.za: Daily Revenue – $57, Website Worth – $42,291
At the end of the day potential advertisers should be asking if the web site that they are considering advertising on will reach their target market and produce sales. Probably the best way to do that is to ask other advertisers on the site if they are happy and have experienced good service.
Contact Janine to discuss advertising on MyPE.
Run your web site through www.bigwebstats.com and let us know what you think in the comments section below:
Alan Straton
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