25 July 2009

ProGenealogists web site ranking

Utah-based genealogy consultants ProGenealogists have produced what they bill as the 50 Most Popular Genealogy Websites for 2009. They claim their ranking is superior to others because it's based on a website analytics process, not an individual or group subjective assessment.

According to ProGenealogists' Kory L. Meyerink the technique adopted uses rankings from four analytics sites, Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, and Ranking.com. He describes the technique in an article linked from here. The article mentions that "It also appears that two of these sites seek to rank sites based on worldwide usage, while the other two focus on U.S. sites." Later in that same article he lists the key criteria for including a Web site on the list, including "Sites must be listed in at least three of the four ranking services."

The upshot is that it's difficult if not impossible for anything but a US site to rank. I recognized only one non-US site on the list, genuki. I wonder how it got there?

I doubt this represents a deliberate slight to the rest of the world, just normal national myopia.Wouldn't it be more accurate, and appropriate, to title this a list of the 50 most popular US genealogy websites for 2009?






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