# Alexa - site statistics



## emiellucifuge

Www.alexa.com

Is a site that analyses web traffic.

Typing in this site, talkclassical, provides some interesting data.
Firstly, the site attracts an above average proportion of people between the ages of 45-55, but does poorly in other age bracktes.
The sites audience has generally a higher education than others.
The site attracts an above average proportion of white males.

If you look at the daily visits and page view graphs, there is a huge jump in web traffic at the beggining of last september. In the first few days of september 2010 this forum attracted many times the average amount of visitors..
Could anyone offer an explanation?


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## elgar's ghost

Hi, e. In statistical terms couldn't results one, two and three as quoted in your post be considered as something of a 'cold reading'? Just a thought...


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## emiellucifuge

I suppose theyre not the most concrete of results.

Alexa has taken the global averages of each audience type. For example, the average website has x% men, x% women etc... And then compared these averages to the audience here at Talkclassical. Personally i do not place much importance on these statistics, but am interested to find a reason for the sudden boost in traffic this september.


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## elgar's ghost

With this kind of data assimilation I guess it depends on the wideness of the spectrum - apart from the fact that we seem able to string a sentence together without too much bad language and dodgy grammar I can't see how they can deduce the overall intelligence factor on here. As regards our skin colour, how the hell can they tell unless they are jumping to the potentially patronising, not to say contentious, conclusion that most classical music lovers in general are white, middle class and middle aged (even if it is/can be proven to be true)?

As regards the influx since September, that is actually quite interesting!


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## emiellucifuge

I dont know exactly how they gather their data, i do know it is global and covers nearly all websites.

Interestingly its not really an influx *since* september, but was just a huge burst in the early days of the month after which, and since, it has returned to normal levels, odd?


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## elgar's ghost

Oh, I see - in that case I can only guess that a few threads must have really took off at that time.


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## Fsharpmajor

emiellucifuge said:


> Www.alexa.comthere is a huge jump in web traffic at the beggining of last september. In the first few days of september 2010 this forum attracted many times the average amount of visitors..
> Could anyone offer an explanation?


Possibly, if you don't mind a few mathematical formulas:

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution*

Scroll through the article and you'll see what I mean. 

To make a long story short, the Poisson distribution predicts, describes and explains the existence of random statistical spikes which have no cause other than the properties of randomness itself.


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## emiellucifuge

Interesting, i think thats in my syllabus for later this year.


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## Huilunsoittaja

Well, I'm not surprised. I mean, really, who else would like classical music? The majority of teenagers? No.


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## vlmt

The September jump may be caused by the "word-of-mouth" phenomenon I'm guessing? Like a person who just joined raves it to his friends, and they all log in to check it out..

Well, I'm just making a guess! It could be just by chance more people are feeling the classical mood in Sept


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## Krummhorn

Seems Alexa is pretty darn close in it's data. I can confirm this from our own internal statistical data:

New Posts Statistics:


Aug ... 3,382
Sep ... 4,443
Oct ... 4,162
The previous high month for new posts was May with 4,108

New Thread Statistics:


Jul ... 308
Aug . 327
Sep 419
Oct 274
The previous high month for new threads was May with 356

New Registrations data:


Jul ... 386
Aug . 437
Sep 403 The biggest influx of new registrations was on Sept 3rd
Oc 434
The highest day of user activity occurred on August 23 when 163 users (registered members) logged in to this site.


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## Almaviva

Krummhorn said:


> Seems Alexa is pretty darn close in it's data. I can confirm this from our own internal statistical data:
> 
> New Posts Statistics:
> 
> 
> Aug ... 3,382
> Sep ... 4,443
> Oct ... 4,162
> The previous high month for new posts was May with 4,108
> 
> New Thread Statistics:
> 
> 
> Jul ... 308
> Aug . 327
> Sep 419
> Oct 274
> The previous high month for new threads was May with 356
> 
> New Registrations data:
> 
> 
> Jul ... 386
> Aug . 437
> Sep 403 The biggest influx of new registrations was on Sept 3rd
> Oc 434
> The highest day of user activity occurred on August 23 when 163 users (registered members) logged in to this site.


Without getting too grandiose, I dare say that I may have had at least a small impact on these numbers, for two reasons. One, I joined in late August and went crazy about the site, started several new threads - almost exclusively in the Opera subforum - and posted a lot (I believe that the site statistics page says that I've been the top poster for a while, as evidenced by the fact that I got more than 1,000 posts in three months - I guess I have too much time in my hands, LOL). Two, I praised this site a lot on another site I was a member of, and encouraged people there to check it out. Whether they did or didn't I can't say because I ended up quitting that site, since my activity here has been more than enough to keep me entertained and this site has fulfilled my opera chatting needs so completely that the other membership became superfluous.


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## emiellucifuge

Almaviva said:


> Without getting too grandiose, I dare say that I may have had at least a small impact on these numbers, for two reasons. One, I joined in late August and went crazy about the site, started several new threads - almost exclusively in the Opera subforum - and posted a lot (I believe that the site statistics page says that I've been the top poster for a while, as evidenced by the fact that I got more than 1,000 posts in three months - I guess I have too much time in my hands, LOL). Two, I praised this site a lot on another site I was a member of, and encouraged people there to check it out. Whether they did or didn't I can't say because I ended up quitting that site, since my activity here has been more than enough to keep me entertained and this site has fulfilled my opera chatting needs so completely that the other membership became superfluous.


LOL :tiphat:


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## Almaviva

emiellucifuge said:


> LOL :tiphat:


Yep, I've just checked it out again, when you click on the Community drop down menu above you get the Top Posters stats, and I've been leading in all recent categories (except all-time, but if I keep up with the pace, I should be there soon, LOL), with more than 400 posts in the last 28 days... And hey, I do have a life, I work full time, am married with children, have real life friends and go out quite a lot, LOL. I'll probably slow down at some point... I guess I went berserk because my love for opera is considered to be an oddity among my real life friends (with a few exceptions, I do have some opera-loving friends and my wife likes opera too, but they aren't as obsessed with it as I am) and I had some built up need to talk about it.

Oh, and I'll tell you what: you've been a close second in the last seven days! I guess you and I are among the people driving the stats up.


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