I often wondered and could not figure out Alexa’s way of charting website traffic as ‘reach per million”. In a post on the Alexa blog the other day this explanation was given:

As long as I am on the topic, I might as well explain this reach per million business. Alexa does not calculate the actual number of users visiting Web sites… what we do instead is release raw data about how many people in a sample population (Alexa Toolbar users, among others) visit a site. The data is normalized to a sample size of 1 million users so that the reach doesn’t fluctuate as our sample base grows or shrinks.

Are you with me so far? So, for example, if we say a site has a Reach per million of 6000, it means that 6000 people in our sample of 1 million Internet users visited the site. Or, to put it more plainly, .6% of the population visited the site.

Now you know!

[tags]alexa, web statistics[/tags]

 

About the Author

Paul Flyer loves to research the web and find resources and tools for building, maintaining and promoting websites. Based in Saint Louis, MO, he works in management and spends his free time sharpening his web development and copy writing skills. Feel free to contact Paul with any questions, comments or ideas. He is also available to help you with your own website.