A freeper showed me this graphic . . .

[Chichiri]

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=379&h=216&r=6m&y=r&u=democraticunderground.com/discuss&u=freerepublic.com

I'm pretty sure I know what it means -- the numbers on the left represent the number of internet users per million who see the site on a daily basis. I'm not sure how to respond to this, however.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. All that shows is how many people find the sites through Alexa, yes? Won't

tell you how many show up via other avenues.

[ET Awful]

4. Bingo.

They don't have the ability to track anything else unless there is information sharing going on directly between them and the host of the sites inquestion.

[Chichiri]

9. Yes, the data comes from those . . .

. . . who use the Alexa Toolbar. It stops popups, gives you a traffic rank, related links, it slices, it dices...

[NYdemocrat089]

23. What is Alexa?

Is it some type of search engine? Like google or yahoo?

[GreenPartyVoter]

24. Yes, kinda like that. Amazon is tied into them. You can review sites like

DU there.

[KingFlorez]

2. Here's what I'd say

The only reason FR's traffic is so high is because alot of people only read it to laugh at all the crazies over there.

[aresef]

Ditto.

[whistle]

3. What's the source, never heard of Alexa.com

[cdb]

5. It shows that internet users are tradionally more conservative

or it shows that right wing wack jobs spend more time on line because they are underemployed shut-ins who waste more time spouting off, echoing each others lies, and generally jerking off

[lonestarnot]

31. and stealing other people's money, husbands, wives, spreading lies,

concocting schemes, terra drills, terra attacks, invasions of privacy, blackmailing, practicing medicine and law w/o a license, planning mass murder... activities of the typical repuke...

[Ready2Snap]

36. It's just a Theory.

Since this tracks user who go thru Alexa, and we can assume from the What's Alexa? posts that not many DUers have ever heard of it THAT:
It shows that a lot of Freepers are checking out DU on a daily basis!!
Hey, where the hell else are they gonna get the truth?
I think there may just be a few close lierals, or Mod. Reps. that are fed up with Bushco and are loooking for a new home.
It's just a Theory.

[Elad]

6. Alexa is useful

but it's not scientific, it only represents those who choose to install their tracking software on their computers.

Further, FR has a 5 year head-start on DU. They were founded in 1996, DU was founded in 2001. Don't worry, we'll catch up. :)

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. You bet we'll catch up! *g*

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. We are already catching up...kinda

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=379&h=216&r=2y&y=p&u=freerepublic.com/&u=democraticunderground.com


More like Free Republic is scaring off some people.

[dogday]

17. Notice they are going down while we are going up....n/t

[youspeakmylanguage]

22. I though Alexa was spyware...

All this really demonstrates is that DUers are less likely to have BS tracking software/malware installed on their computers.

Also, does Alexa work on Macs?

[Hobarticus]

7. Just means there's more dipshits than we expected...n/t

[XNASA]

8. And more people eat at McDonalds than at Spago.

So what?

[skypilot]

12. LOL!!!!

Stop that you liberal elitist.:)

[XNASA]

18. That's my standard retort.

My other one is.......

"And the Eagles sold more records than Roxy Music."

[I Have A Dream]

11. alexa is spyware that's put on your machine without you knowing it.

We at DU are probably better at making sure we protect our machines than the freepers are. Only people who have this spyware on their machine are recorded as hits.

I saw them discussing this on FR last week. Some of them even mentioned this fact in reference to the data.

This means nothing except that we're better at protecting our machines.

[Beaver Tail]

13. Alexa IS spyware

Which just goes to show freepers computers are fucked up. I would worry about these stats. They dont mean anything.

What REALLY counts is how many hits a site gets from ALL avenues. Sites usually have a way of counting this.

[sam sarrha]

15. It only proves that 'Circle jerks' are really popular to teenagers

:thumbsup: :grouphug: :blush: :rofl:

[Catherine Vincent]

16. Wow! that many people visit their website?

Ole Robinson should be a millionaire!

[Catholic Sensation]

19. free republic has more visitors than du

has been around longer than du
is widely accepted by the conservative community

the drudge report gets more visits than atrios or wonkette, it doesn't make it a better site.

[mr blur]

20. Perhaps there are just more morons than smart people. nt

[skids]

21. The real ratings.

Are here:

http://politics.technorati.com/pop/blogs/

...and this page is very useful, too:

http://politics.technorati.com/pop/news/

...they used to have an "attention index" which was even more useful, but they canned it when the redesigned.

Unfortunately FR and DU either aren't considered "blogs" or are both too low to rank.

[booley]

28. Well how can DU compete against Boing Boing?

A directory of wonderful things.

I mean, that truck of fake boobs being hijacked... totoally opened my eyes!

[newportdadde]

25. It just shows most freepers have PCs infected with Alexa spyware.

[jmowreader]

26. It's possible to freep Alexa

For newbies, "freeping" is a term with two meanings...

1) a gathering of Free Republic members, who call themselves FReepers. (We didn't make that degrading term up. They pasted it on themselves.)
2) manipulating an online poll by having all of their members post repeatedly to it.

Alexa is a traffic-monitoring service. It works through a device called the Alexa Toolbar. When you go to a website, the Alexa Toolbar transmits the name of that site to alexa.com. Alexa generates its statistics from these transmissions. (Yes, the term for this is spyware. The difference between Alexa and traditional spyware is that you install Alexa with full knowledge of what it does.)

Alexa's Toolbar requires a Windows PC and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Therefore, the few Mac-owning freepers are not accounted for in these statistics. The few Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape/Opera/other non-MSIE browser-using freepers are not accounted for. And there's a very strong pack mentality among the freepers, who are very proud of that Alexa rank, so they will do what they can to maintain or enhance this rank.

I would hazard a guess that freepers receive a message from Jim Robinson, Kristinn or some other high-ranking freeper once they join to ask them to help the team by installing the Alexa Toolbar.

If most freepers have Alexa Toolbar and they live on FR, it would tend to skew the numbers somewhat.

The Alexa graph means lots of people who read FR are Alexa subscribers. Nothing more.

[HamstersFromHell]

32. They install on purpose...

RimJob tells 'em Alexa gives 'em a discount on porta-potties.

[jmowreader]

34. I'm almost positive all porta-potty rental agencies are owned by freepers

And why not? It's a perfect job for a freeper. You get to sniff shit all day long. The work is easy and repetitive. And you get directions to every freeper rally.

[wideopen]

27. How can that many people visit there?

The layout of the site totally sucks! I guess they don't know what a well designed site looks like. Sometimes I would like to see what they have to say but it's just too damn much trouble.

[NMMNG]

29. Wow

Dipwads who voluntarily submit to spyware to puff themselves up in their own imaginations:eyes:. To think I actually have two programs devoted to detecting and removing spyware from my computer when I could have colorful graphs instead. What was I thinking?

[Stirk]

30. I assume it's a fraud. They always promote frauds.

[ConsAreLiars]

33. Among the most gullible, those who willingly install spyware like Alexa,

FR is is more frequently visited than DU. Now how is that a surprise?

As a reminder, use anti-spyware software regularly and get rid of parasitic trash like Alexa, and don't worry about the numbers of fools who show up in those stats.

[Digit]

38. Yep, they don't know enough to stay away from sites like this

Funny how the tout it, isn't it.

[AuntPatsy]

35. It obviously fails to tell the whole tale, I take a few moments

here and there visiting those sites in an attempt to find something that I feel might unite us as a nation since we are a multi culture and vast ethnic population though it is obvious, many wish it otherwise...

I have yet to see anything more than an attempt to divide and conquer any and all who refuse to end up carbon copies of such an unnatural element of what a diverse nation of people should represent which is openly lacking when discussed amongst those of like mind.

I don't know why I continue to read so many of their posts, the hypocrisy and downright inane mindsets do nothing but make me nauseated...

So it happens to have nothing to do with the internet being more populated by such a closeminded set of people as so many republican conservatives show themselves to be.

[Endangered Specie]

37. More people believe in creationism than evolution...

dont make it right.