Where do Ethiopians go on the web? The list below provides an answer, according to the data from Alexa.com, a web ranking service. The sites in the table below are ordered according to their rank on December 31/2010. According to Alexa, the Top 100 list ‘is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1.’

And this blog? Danielberhane’s Blog is ranked 49th in Ethiopia and 99,938 Globally. Of course, Alexa’s daily ranking had consistently placed this blog among the 25 most visited sites in Ethiopia from mid-October to November, frequently at 22nd rank. Though, this blog’s ranking slipped to the thirties and forties in December, its global ranking has been between 95,000 and 100,000 since mid-December. This is very important, since Alexa traffic ranking is more accurate for sites with more than 1,000 monthly visitors and with Global ranking 100,000 or better. Indeed, I made inquiries to the Alexa technical team and cross-checked the accurateness of the data(audience/visitors analytics) with other sources, including WordPress stat, Quantcast, etc. Yet, unfortunately, only Alexa.com provides a regional ranking for Ethiopia. [Note that: according to WordPress stat there has been more than 8,000 visits to this blog in this month only.]

So what? First and foremost, I believe, attaining such good rankings, with intermittent posts and in a less than 8 months, proves the dearth of information on the web concerning Ethiopia. Indeed, the fact that this blog refrains from mixing facts and opinions, let alone deliberate disinformation, is to be credited. This made it appealing even to those who reject the opinions in the posts.

This has implications on the way I see and manage this blog. Perhaps, this is no more the blog I started to express my opinion without having to face the unpredictable editorial decisions of the local press. Well, this is an agenda to ponder on 2011. I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

See below the Top 100 sites in Ethiopia on Dec. 31/2010.

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How is Alexa ranking computed?:

The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users). The three-month change is determined by comparing the site’s current rank with its rank from three months ago. For example, on July 1, the three-month change would show the difference between the rank based on traffic during the first quarter of the year and the rank based on traffic during the second quarter.

For more explanations read here(a brief explanation) or here(a detailed explanation).

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The Top 100 sites in Ethiopia [from Alexa]