Tell me more ×
Answers OnStartups is a question and answer site for entrepreneurs looking to start or run a new business. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

I use google analytics to analyze the visitors , no of pages visited and other stats for my web site Skill-guru

I have also added my site on compete.com . I was looking at unique visitors count on compete and there was a big difference between number of unique visitors reported by google compared to compete. Do they use different parameters to count the unique users ?

share|improve this question

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote accepted

Compete is just an estimate, and I've seen it be wrong by an order of magnitude. I wouldn't trust it at all if you can help it; if you do look at it, just count the number of digits in the number.

share|improve this answer
Thanks Jason.What is the reason we see the websites measuring traffic using compete especially on techcrunch ? – skillguru Dec 28 '09 at 0:43
Skillguru - That is because sometimes it is the only way to see other people's numbers, that is the real purpose of compete... to get a rough estimate of the traffic of other people's websites. There are much better ways to track the traffic to your own sites (GA, etc) – James Avery Dec 28 '09 at 3:33
@skillguru, James is right. The answer is "because it's the only number they can get their hands on." Using Compete for relative traffic size is probably better, but I know (from my own websites) that even that can be off by an order of magnitude. – Jason Dec 29 '09 at 3:01
EXAMPLE: Speak of the devil, just saw this on my Twitter feed: twitter.com/otherinbox/statuses/7142664228 – Jason Dec 29 '09 at 3:09
You are right Jason. Compete so inaccurate. The unique user count plugin in my wordpress blog does much better job – skillguru Jan 22 '10 at 15:15
up vote 1 down vote

Google Analytics is much more accurate than Compete.com because GA uses a tracking pixel and Compete does not.

share|improve this answer
Thanks Joe. What you said sounds logical – skillguru Dec 28 '09 at 0:43

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.