- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Actually, Alexa.com is merely an estimate. Let me explain how it works:
* They have a toolbar which a few people (4-5 million) supposedly have downloaded.
* They take the stats reported from their toolbar, create a percentage of people visiting it, and then multiply it by the number of people on the internet.
This means that for big sites, it's quite accurate. For smaller sites, it's dismally incorrect, for one or two people might represent 10-20 million by their estimates. It's good to get a general idea, but its not a good source to quote or use in a paper--nobody knows the exact statistics on the internet.