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[AmexFan]

At times for some, it can be interesting to see how web traffic is affected during major decisions and changes. When looking at web traffic in general, I usually use Alexa . . . here are the links for Prosper.com and Prospers.org data at Alexa:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/prosper.com

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/prospers.org

Do you know of or use a different site to look at traffic data? Bonus: Provide link to Prosper.com / Prospers.org traffic data from the site(s) you like.

[Tokyo Joe]

At times for some, it can be interesting to see how web traffic is affected during major decisions and changes. When looking at web traffic in general, I usually use Alexa . . . here are the links for Prosper.com and Prospers.org data at Alexa:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/prosper.com

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/prospers.org

Do you know of or use a different site to look at traffic data? Bonus: Provide link to Prosper.com / Prospers.org traffic data from the site(s) you like.

I don't have an answer to your query, but I love looking at these kinds of stats too. 

Look at the 3 year graph for Prosper.  In decline since Nov. 2006; below half of its total then.  Prosper Days in Feb. '07 was less of a boost than I thought, even with it, they fell short of Nov '06.

It is a classic portrait of a company in trouble.  Hope for their sake there's a surprise in store, because that's one steady, almost incessant decline.  And second loans ain't helping...

[112233]

poofer

[PLP]

If everyone here who visits often downloaded the Alexa tool bar, you could raise Prosper.org's Alexa Rank significantly.  Alexa simply ranks page view of people who have the Alexa toolbar installed.  Download here:  http://www.alexa.com/site/download  (Note that there are privacy issues to using the toolbar)

There is a similar service http://www.compete.com/ although it is not as well known as Alexa.

[HollowOak]

If everyone here who visits often downloaded the Alexa tool bar, you could raise Prosper.org's Alexa Rank significantly.  Alexa simply ranks page view of people who have the Alexa toolbar installed.  Download here:  http://www.alexa.com/site/download  (Note that there are privacy issues to using the toolbar)

There is a similar service http://www.compete.com/ although it is not as well known as Alexa.

I think a lot of us (me included) rank Alexa as intrusive spyware.

[AmexFan]

I'll fess up - the only time I had Alexa installed was for about a week, three computers ago, in California.

[PLP]

I think a lot of us (me included) rank Alexa as intrusive spyware.

Me too, but a group of people deciding to use it who frequent a particular site can move a site's Alexa ranking. So each person should decide for themselves. 

[SGriff]

Which is exactly why I hold zero stock in Alexa's site rankings - they're almost exclusively tied to the Alexa toolbar.

[Tokyo Joe]

Which brings us full circle to the OP's question...  Anyone know any other outfits besides Alexa who tracks sites?

I did check out Prosper.com at www.compete.com (thanks, personalloanportfolio)

Interestingly, Compete.com offers a completely different story than Alexa:



Here, we do not have a portrait of a company (or company site, I should say) in trouble.  Just stagnation.

Connect.com doesn't have a 3 year graph for easy comparison, one year Nov. '06 to Nov. '07 to compare.

Instead of starting at a peak and trending down like a dying stock, like Alexa's graph, this one starts low, and trends up (although it shows fairly flat growth since July '07.

Prosper Days is the hump towards the left, and does appear to be the traffic high point.

I'm not sure which stats are more accurate, or tell a truer story, but one trends down, and one is flat and hasn't quite managed to surpass its peak.  Neither down or flat are good signs for a growing company's website.  I bet eBay wasn't flat or trending down back in the early days... (don't know for sure, though)

[Tokyo Joe]

Here is the wacky roller coaster that was prospers.org in the days the Prosper.com original forums existed.



Note how attendance was tanking (according to compete.com) until Prosper decided to nuke its community there.  December will almost assuredly surpass July by a sizable margin here, if compete.com is counting right...

[SGriff]

Where does that site get its tracking data?

Fact is, no one but the server admins themselves can actually track unique hits on a website.

[Tokyo Joe]

Where does that site get its tracking data?

Fact is, no one but the server admins themselves can actually track unique hits on a website.

I'm assuming it's a taskbar or snareware of some sort.  They offer a toolkit download, which I'm skipping.

The fact is you're right, there is no way to get real data.  Alexa and Compete are skewed towards the type of people who would download that junk onto their computer, which may not accurately resemble the lenders at large (but may closely resemble many borrowers, who may be more prone to internet gimmickry)

The numbers themselves are just projections, with huge margins of error.  Like on the Prosper.org one; I really don't think we went from 2700 people to 200 in a month.

But there probably was a dip; the posting statistics at .org reflect it.

So it's all we got, kinda...

[nonattender]

I've been looking at QuantCast.com quite often lately..

-t

[PLP]

I'm assuming it's a taskbar or snareware of some sort.  They offer a toolkit download, which I'm skipping.

The fact is you're right, there is no way to get real data.  Alexa and Compete are skewed towards the type of people who would download that junk onto their computer, which may not accurately resemble the lenders at large (but may closely resemble many borrowers, who may be more prone to internet gimmickry)

It is a tool bar. I often hear that the Alexa data is also skewed towards webmasters because many of them download it to 1) know the alexa rank of the site that they are visiting easily (shows up in toolbar) and 2) want to raise the ranking of their own site.

Obviously it would be way off for people who are super secretive.