Where Have All The Users Gone?

One of my favorite tools for studying trends on the web is Alexa's traffic anlaysis tool. (From that link, select a "site info" for one of the sites listed on that page, and then click on the "see traffic details" link on the subsequent page and you'll see what I'm talking about.)

From time to time I take a look up various sites within Alexa's tool to see how things are doing. I was astonished to see what the trends are in the past six months, for many of the sites I visit.

In a word, the trend is down.

Part of my astonishment is due to the fact that traffic on my own websites, including this one, has trended downwards exactly as the graphs below show for much larger sites. I was not expecting to see a similar pattern between my humble little sites and monsters like eBay, Amazon, DELL, Expedia, and AOL. But yet, there it is.

Now remember: Alexa's graphs capture how the rank, within Alexa's own lists, of popular websites changes over time. The business goal, of course, for any web business is higher and higher traffic, month over month. That ought to translate into higher and higher rankings within Alexa, one would think.

Here are some companies I checked out (warning -- 490x2055 image ahead):

See a pattern? I do. The Alexa rankings for many name-brand websites are way, way down. And going down more. Even eBay! Amazon! AOL!

But it's not all doom. Some sites, including some international ones, and some of the social networks, are trending upwards:

So what are the possible explanations?

I have a few, but bear in mind they are total guesses, and I await word from Bruce Gilliat of Alexa for some enlightenment:

• A changing of the guard? Maybe international sites are finally eating into what has traditionally been an American game. Maybe Social Networks like Orkut and Friendster really are catching on, and eating up online time that used to be spent elsewhere?

• A change in ranking formula? Perhaps Alexa tweaked its algorithm or ranking formula sometime in January 2004, and ever since, things have been different?

• Less usage overall? Maybe with all the craziness going on in the world, people are spending more time offline instead of surfing the web? (Or maybe SPAM is sending people away from their computers?)

• Alexa user behavior change? Maybe the behavior of typical Alexa Toolbar users has changed since January? Maybe Alexa shipped a new version of the toolbar and it has affected trends?

Whatever the cause, this downward trend was unexpected by me. But I feel less bad now about my downward Google AdSense revenues (coincidence? they've gone down ever since January as well).

I welcome your thoughts and theories in the comments below.

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UPDATE: As I was typing the above blog entry, Bruce Gilliat of Alexa forwarded my inquiry on to Geoff Mack, a product manager at the company, who has this to say (having not seen this blog entry yet):

Hi Brian, Bruce Gilliat forwarded your e-mail to me. We here at Alexa have been watching the same trend for the last several years: International sites moving up in the rankings and other very popular US sites slowly dropping. Like you, we were initially surprised by this trend. Recently we've read several research reports and news stories indicating that global web usage is outstripping US web usage: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/EL25Dk01.html The growth in web usage among non-us nations, particularly Asian countries, is real. What is most surprising is that the Alexa Toolbar is popular in these countries, even though we have made no effort to internationalize our service. If you would like to see if traffic to your list of sites is actually dropping, I would recommend looking at Alexa's Reach per Million stat on the traffic detail page. I did a quick check on some of the sites on your list and found many had actually been losing users. But, keep in mind that web traffic is seasonal. It is normal to see a drop in web usage in the Summer. Best of luck to you with your blog. Send me a link to the post. I would be very interested to read it. And feel free to contact me if I can provide any insight. Geoff Mack Product Manager Alexa Internet

6,589 Words To Ponder

Al Gore's 5/26/2004 speech. Worth reading. All 6,589 words of it.