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In order to find out whether or not we have hit bottom in the various regions, I encourage y’all to check alexa.com website rankings. For airbnb.com, it turns out that the bottom was reached on the 15th of June when the site was ranked Nr 544 in the world compared to Nr 278 90 days ago. That represents a halving of website traffic in such a short time span. The good news is that traffic is climbing again, albeit slowly. It’s now at Nr 492 globally.
In the UK, the bottom was reached on the 18th of June. In Ireland, the bottom was reached on the 3rd of June. How is it fairing in your part of the world? Check out https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/airbnb.com to see if AirBnB has hit bottom where you are hosting.
I thought my post was pretty clear: I was speaking about the “bottom” of website traffic on AirBnB. Not the bottom of local deaths, unemployment, pollution levels etc. I am only speaking about website traffic on AirBnB.com and other sites such as co.uk, .ie, .ca and so forth. If you have a word that describes this phenomenon better than I would be curious to hear it. With regards to Alexa, I didn’t “ask” Alexa as is suggested above. I used a web ranking website called Alexa that predates the voice activated system by about twenty years.
I’d be very careful about judging anything from Alexa data. It only refers to site visits from users of the Alexa toolbar. And the toolbar, as far as I know, works only on a computer, not on a phone.
And even after 20yrs its data is still considered to be inaccurate, mainly due to (as @jaquo mentions) the fact it only processes data from those folks with the Alexa toolbar installed in a browser, using a PC or laptop.
It is not mobile friendly, and given that mobile traffic was around 53% of ALL web traffic last year, that’s a hell of an amount of missing date.
I understood what you meant @Suntory but Alexa is not something that those of us who have worked/work in digital marketing /website development hold much store by.
This is because nowadays in many cases more people access the internet on their phone, particularly for sites such as Airbnb where the huge majority use their mobile - and Alexa only processes data from those who use a PC/laptop with their data bar.
It’s not that people don’t understand what you are referring to but Alexa is not a credible source and their stats and data are pretty meaningless.
This is interesting @Suntory. Thanks! I followed the link. Does it automatically show me the numbers from my region? And which number am I looking for - to compare to the ones you quoted. There are a lot of numbers on the page (and this is generally not in my knowledge bank ,) Is it the “Alexa Rank 90 Day Trend”? If so, it says #486.
There’s another factor too. At one time, I can’t be 100% sure it’s the same now, Alexa toolbar users tended to be mostly from China and India. I don’t know about other hosts but people from those countries aren’t my target market at the moment.
So if fewer people from India and China who have the Alexa toolbar aren’t going to Airbnb when using their computers that doesn’t really matter to me.
Deaths and unemployment are related to where the bottom will be for Airbnb ranking on searches regardless of the tool used. Of course even if you had said “LOW” not bottom and had qualified your use of Alexa we still would have criticized Alexa. It’s SOP around here. Lol.
@jaquo@Helsi@JohnF@KKC Thank you all for your comments and feedback. All of you essentially said the same thing and I don’t doubt that Alexa ranking is inaccurate or has inaccuracies. However, none of you suggested a better alternative. Do you have anything better to go by? A reply along the lines of “I don’t use traffic data” etc. is not very useful. I am genuinely interested to hear whether you know of a tool that is better in which case I will use that from now on. Perhaps a tool that incorporates mobile/app traffic? @Helsi since you worked in digital marketing, I am sure you know something better out there. Thanks again for your comments.
As far as I know, there isn’t a tool (certainly not a free one) that can give any accurate data. After all and taking Airbnb as an example, a stats service can easily determine every visitor’s browser, or if they are using a phone.
But that data is only available to the website owner (and any staff or people that are given access by the owner). As you can imagine, if that wasn’t the case then every company would be looking up details of their competitors’ web performance.
Then there is the app and its usage which can be more than the website. So gathering data - and then analysing that data - are never going to be things that are out in the open, or that can be easily understood by the layman.
There are a lot of other issues to do with website/app usage. Where in the world are your site visitors? Have they been before or is it a first visit? Are they potential customers or a kid doing a school project? How did they find the website in the first place? How long did they stay on the site and which pages did they use? (There’s a lot more!)
Sorry I cant’ be more helpful but it is a complicated thing.
I don’t think anyone can be more helpful, there simply isn’t an app or site that accurately charts web traffic. The internet is an amorphous, intangible network of interconnected computers, without any way of measuring (other than site owners own web stats) traffic between each node.
Alexa, in my not so humble opinion, is worthwhile only to those who will try to convince you (as a site owner) that you need to improve your Alexa ranking, for a sometimes not insubstantial fee or course.
I know they were trying to install Alexa tracking code into third party browser apps, but there is a minefield there in respect of user privacy.
In short, good idea, but then again so was BetaMax, and 8 track cartridges, and AOL, and CompuServe
Hi @Suntory if you can tell us what you are trying to understand maybe we can suggest something that will help?
I truly don’t understand why, where a website ranks, helps you run your STR business.
Surely what is important for you in marketing terms is a) how much footfall will there be to your area of the sort of people who are your target market (demand) b) what does supply look like in your town/city/area (is it over saturated) (supply) c) what does pricing look like for comparable properties. d) are you using the right marketing channels to reach your target market. e) your conversion rate views to bookings.
Not only am I from DH Lawrence land, I am from DH Lawrence city. Lol.
Thank you all for your feedback on this query. As @jaquo has pointed out, I am based in the UK. Our official lockdown is ending on the 4th of July. The UK government has confirmed that on the 23rd of July. I have noticed an increase in enquiries over the the past two weeks. I was interested to see whether this trend is mirrored in website traffic which is why I checked out alexa.com. In the absence of a more accurate tool, I will continue to use alexa.com.
Thanks again for everyone’s feedback on this topic. All the best …
And a great city it is too. Plenty of things to do and see. Although I still think that your city’s claim to fame of another historical character isn’t quite correct - that one was from Yorkshire.
