19 Comments so far

1. George on October 8, 2007 4:59 pm

   Anyone got a hitwise account?
   Compete and Quantcast haven’t caught up yet.

2. Rob Lewis on October 9, 2007 8:47 am

   Looks like a blip in Alexa’s data to me, can’t see why their traffic would drop by so much so quickly.

3. Anon on October 9, 2007 11:29 am

   Fools - Anyone that knows anything about SEO and the internet is aware that Alexa’s data is highly unreliable. This blog has NO credibility whatsoever.

4. George on October 9, 2007 11:39 am

   @Anon
   Didn’t you spot the (!) after Alexa? Everyone knows Alexa is rubbish but it can sometimes give a good indication of trends.
   Hitwise data is normally ‘fairly’ accurate but I don’t have access to an account.

5. Rich on October 9, 2007 2:54 pm

   The above taken into account - interesting to see what alexa shows for tescocompare - according to alexa they’ve already overtaken gocompare!!

6. Ernest on October 9, 2007 3:54 pm

   @Anon

   I was reading your comment on my phone whilst on the train on the way to work. Thanks for cheering me up this morning. Your stupendous reading error did make me laugh!

   Best read things more thoroughly next time

7. Ernest on October 9, 2007 3:56 pm

   @Rich

   Indeed, this is where a reliable stats package would be useful. With Alexa, you trust it when it tells you the obvious trend. When it shows something drastic or potentially out of the ordinary, you don’t trust it any more. Silly really.

   Mind you, with the exposure, point-of-sale opportunities and campaign spending power of Tesco, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if they have overtaken GoCompare. Still, they’ve got a way to go before they rival their service.

   …mind you, GoCompare still have a long way to go too

8. Tron on October 9, 2007 4:33 pm

   I have got some hitwise figures, and yeah there is a drop, but it is not as pronounced as Alexa is suggesting.

   Interestingly, the drop does probably equate to the combined total traffic of uswitch and money expert, but they remain way ahead of everyone else. Happy to share the data if someone tells me how to post graphics.

9. George on October 10, 2007 10:41 am

   @Tron
   I don’t think wordpress allows images in comments. You can email it to us insidersview[THEATSIGN]gmail[THEDOT]com

10. JC on October 11, 2007 9:53 am

    compete has them on the up ….. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/moneysupermarket.com/

    aug-06 to aug-07

    Paid for hitwise stats would give the best indicator.

11. Rich on October 15, 2007 10:14 am

    There’s a new DP link network spammer in town, moving up the charts for “car insurance” - http://www.powerseeker.co.uk/

12. Ernest on October 15, 2007 10:33 am

    GoCompare are sneeking up there too! Didn’t they recently fire their search agency for buying links? I wonder if this success is down to ethic link building or the old fashion, paid for route?

13. Rich on October 15, 2007 10:52 am

    Ernest - all of gocompare’s spammy links are still there - such as http://www.watchingamerica.com/index.shtml & http://www.superlowhosting.com/

    BTW - have you seen the state of and nature of other links on the latter!

    Not what you would call solid foundations, but then again who know’s with the Google of today.

14. Kevin on October 15, 2007 11:48 am

    @Ernest

    We are climbing slowly! It has taken some time to get to this position and is down to a number of factors, some of which include the number of brand searches that we now have and the quality of our link building, especially through our PR team.

    As you know Ernest, we’re here for the long term, so have been prepared to be patient in our rise through the rankings.

    @ Rich

    As I’ve openly pointed out on other occasions, these links were purchased by our previous agency. We are gradually removing some of the poorer quality links to our site, but as with building links, we need to faze them out over time.

15. Ernest on October 15, 2007 11:04 pm

    @Rich - that truly is comical link building!

    @Kevin - who is your search agency nowadays?

16. Kevin on October 18, 2007 10:14 am

    @ Ernest,

    Because of the attacks made on SEO agencies in the past on I-V, I am reluctant to publicly name our agency.

    What I will say is, as with any agency, it’s really the people on your account that make the real difference and we now have a team working for us who are well aligned to the goals of Gocompare.com and we are very pleased with the work that they are doing for us.

17. Ernest on October 18, 2007 11:05 am

    @Kevin

    OK, good PR line. Hayley has taught you well.

    However, you will notice that only a handful of (albeit sometimes the largest) search agencies are spoken about on here because of their wrong doing - not working within Google’s guidelines.

    It’s up to them. I can see the short term gains they’re making and their clients (like Money Expert) take part in this, knowingly, and as part of their search strategy. Fair dos. It’s up to them. Any thoughts given on a particular agency is just to highlight that they have a different opinion to us - not that they don’t know what they’re doing …quite the opposite in most cases.

    So …who is it? Or do I need to do some digging myself?!!

18. Rich on October 18, 2007 11:11 am

    @Ernest

    Think it’s the same guys as who does this one http://www.constructaquote.com/ - carry similar linking patterns

19. Alid on February 25, 2008 5:53 pm

    Yes Rich, I think it must be these guys:

    http://www.mconsulting.co.uk/1/mexperience/clients.aspx