JF Uncut

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent’s point.

The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (pictured above), who attributed it to the 19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli’s works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Other coiners have therefore been proposed. The most plausible, given current evidence, is Englishman Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843–1911). (Wikipedia)

So, yet another instance of misrepresentation at worst, or misunderstanding at best?

I genuinely am a real “stato” – which may surprise you? I have purchased several software packages to ensure that I have the latest  and most accurate data relating to my sites constantly at my fingertips. For example, I can tell you that during the first six months of this year, this blog attracted visitors from 142 countries; 40% came from the USA; another 20% from the UK. Of those from the USA, the top three visiting states were; California, New York and Texas, in that order. I am least popular in Wyoming - whatever did I do to those folks?

But I do not intend to bore you any further with my own statistics, although you will have gathered I am a bit of a stickler for accuracy, particularly when statistics are published which are not only inaccurate, but equally misleading.

Let me introduce you to Invesp – or rather Invesp’s “Top 50 Blog Tables”

They first came to my attention a few months ago, thanks to a good chum’s blog post, in which he proudly shared his latest ranking with his readers. Since then, I have checked back periodically to discover if my own ranking was improving in-line with my data, which was telling me that all of my stats were continuing to get better and better. However, a short while ago, I noticed that they were not picking up some of my data, so I alerted them. I didn’t receive a reply, so I decided to dig a little deeper – here are the results of my investigations last week.

The results that I am describing were extracted on Tuesday July 20th.

You will notice, that according to Invesp’s latest Top 50 Sales Blogs league, I am currently laying in 17th position overall, which they describe as the “Ultimate Rank”

You may also notice that they claim to have no data for the first two categories – RSS Membership & Compete Rank – which is surprising, as both these sets of stats are very easy to obtain. I actually have 159 RSS Subscribers (Yes, I know it is quite low, I really must do a little more bullying!) and my current Compete Rank is 522,919 (Which I am quite pleased with) They also claim not to be able to access my monthly visitor numbers, which again, I obtained from Compete very easily.

Next, I decided to compare my stats with those of someone much higher up Invesp’s league – I just picked somebody at random, in this case the person who was exactly ten places higher than me, and it happened to be highly respected sales thought leader, Sharon-Drew Morgen.

So, here is how our statistics compared:

By Feedburner RSS membership

SDM: 590  JF: 159

By unique monthly visitors

SDM: 1123  JF: 2921

By Yahoo indexed pages

SDM: 135  JF: 1000 

By Google indexed pages

SDM: 215  JF: 492 (Although Invesp report SDM: 299  JF: 274)

By number of incoming links (via Yahoo)

SDM: 822  JF: 25,900 (Although Invesp report SDM: 45,209  JF: 43,916 – My Source – http://www.submitexpress.com/linkpop/

By number of incoming links (via Google)

SDM: 127  JF: 253

By the ratio of incoming links to numbers of pages

Impossible to calculate from data available, in my experience.

By Google PR (Page Rank – the higher the better)

SDM: 4  JF: 5

By Alexa rank (The lower the better)

SDM: 661,326  JF: 431,634

By Compete rank (Again, the lower, the better)

SDM: 1,230,292  JF: 522,919

And just for good measure:

Technorati Authority (The higher the better)

SDM: 123  JF: 130

Summary:

In all Invesp’s key measurement areas, except one, my statistics were (are) better than Sharon-Drews’ – so why such poor reporting. It is, as I suggested earlier, totally misleading, and actually, a complete waste of time.

I asked Invesp, very politely, for an explanation/investigation – that was almost a week ago, but I’ll certainly pass on any reply I do receive.

I also want to make it very, very clear, that this post is in no way meant to involve/implicate Sharon-Drew. It is not her fault that her numbers have been grossly distorted and mis-represented. She possibly does not even know of the existence of the league table – not many people do.

Finally, let’s end with some good news, and some guaranteed, genuine stats: Yesterday was my 950th post here – yes, amazing! So, we are planning a celebration on September 13th – when I make my 1000th post – including a very special commemoration ebook containing 100 favourite posts from the last four years – not just mine, but also from my huge number of guests – more soon.

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