Ranking software???

[Lisa]

I see at the bottom of the page the reptirank and other ranking/tracking sites that track visits... I noticed one thing, sSnakeSs is (currently) #1 in reptirank and #3 on redtailboa but another reptile site (fauna) is (currently) # 2 in both. how can both sites be both ahead and behind each other in rank?

[Cruciform]

Each of the tracking systems is independent. Basically they only rank through traffic to their site.

So if you register on ReptiRank and a lot of people click on the ReptiRank banner at the bottom to go look for other pages you get points for referencing them.

So in this case lots of Ssnakess users click through to those sites, while Fauna users don't click through quite as much on one, but do on the other :)

[Lisa]

That seems like a silly way to track.

Why not track actual page hits to the actual site in question instead of the page hits the tracking site gets via people clicking on the link?

[Cruciform]

It's not as silly as you might think :)

If their tracking methods rely on people clicking through to the rating site, then the sites that want to be ranked encourage users to do so.

For example "Please click the SUPERMEGARANK banner at the bottom to make us number one!"

When the user clicks through, not only do they see the rankings for the sites they also see banners that are paid for. The rankings site then gets money for showing banners, but only has to do the initial site setup. The sites that want to be ranked do all the work trying to get traffic to them.

Back when banner advertising was worth 2 or 3 dollars per thousand clicks, some people made a killing. Others paid off their tuitions :)