Is China Banning Alexa?

Rumors, Conspiracies, etc.

from the might-be dept

Juan Lopez-Valcarcel writes in noticing that, according to Alexa, “Baidu online traffic dropped 50% this week.” He wonders if it’s a sign that the Chinese dot com bubble may be popping, but that seems unlikely. In fact, he shows that some other Chinese sites have similar drops. He even checked to see if it was due to the expected loss in traffic after Baidu removed the ability to download unauthorized music and movies — but that’s not the case either. The drop is simply too fast for that to make sense. Combined with the similar drop in sohu.com (and a few other sites I checked, like 163.com), it certainly suggests that the problem has more to do with Alexa and China. It’s pure speculation, obviously, but given China’s tendency to block sites somewhat arbitrarily, it seems likely that China has put at least a partial ban on traffic from users of the Alexa toolbar. One more reason why Alexa stats are anything but reliable. Anyone else have any idea what else may be causing it?