Update: for the latest revision of this list go to Popular deal sites - December 2008.
This is April 2007 revision of the Popular Deal Sites list (yeah, I am renaming it, “bargain hunting” sounds kind of long) ;-). You can find the last month revision of the list here.
The change in rating shows the difference compared to March results. The list has a total of 37 web sites. There are 35 more in my database that didn’t meet the Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement.
A whopping total of 7 sites fell off the list this month as their Alexa went over the limit, mrcheapstuff.com being one of them (Dean, I am sorry). The average decline is 13.91% compared to 27.07% last month and 11.13% the month before. In addition many sites lost their Page Rank after this month update from Google.
I am really puzzled. This is a very disturbing trend. Let me ask this question which I have heard not once but never really got any definite answer:
Is Google punishing affiliate sites?
These rumors are floating around for a while and I would like to hear your opinion. Is your site in the list? Has search engine traffic been diminishing lately?
dealslist.com was hit hardest this month losing 33.19% of its Alexa rank. I can’t say anything about it other than it is a very ordinary looking deals site with a dormant user forum (why keep it if no-one uses it?).
The best result comes from dealhack.com which rose 3.08% this month. Congrats guys! I hope I still see you around the next update. 
| # | Web Site | Alexa Rank | Page Rank | Online Since | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | slickdeals.net (info) | 1192 | (-18.96%) | 6 | 10-Nov-1999 | |
| 2 | fatwallet.com (info) | 1344 | (-19.68%) | 6 | 29-Nov-1999 | |
| 3 | anandtech.com | 3165 | (-17.4%) | 6 | (-1) | 24-Aug-1997 |
| 4 | dealnews.com (info) | 5909 | (-21.06%) | 6 | (-1) | 20-Jan-1999 |
| 5 | techbargains.com | 6877 | (-25.72%) | 5 | 03-May-1999 | |
| 6 | deals2buy.com | 7734 | (2.14%) | 5 | 15-Nov-2002 | |
| 7 | bensbargains.net | 8759 | (-23.24%) | 5 | 21-Mar-2000 | |
| 8 | dealcatcher.com | 12864 | (-18.65%) | 6 | 28-Jul-1999 | |
| 9 | dealtaker.com | 15177 | (-6.21%) | 4 | 08-Feb-2004 | |
| 10 | resellerratings.com (info) | 15409 | (-12.85%) | 6 | 18-Jun-1998 | |
| 11 | judysbook.com | 15538 | (-16.2%) | 6 | 11-Aug-2003 | |
| 12 | edealinfo.com | 15883 | (-10.05%) | 5 | 12-Dec-2000 | |
| 13 | dealsea.com | 16341 | (-17.43%) | 4 | (-1) | 27-Jun-2001 |
| 14 | dealspl.us (info) | 19286 | (-5.12%) | 5 | 15-May-2006 | |
| 15 | xpbargains.com | 19670 | (-17.31%) | 4 | 29-Nov-2001 | |
| 16 | flamingoworld.com | 21121 | (-23.11%) | 4 | (-1) | 19-May-1999 |
| 17 | fishingfordeals.com | 24277 | (-4.53%) | 3 | 23-May-2000 | |
| 18 | spoofee.com | 29218 | (-22.36%) | 5 | 31-Dec-2000 | |
| 19 | dealsofamerica.com | 29844 | (-15.3%) | 4 | (-1) | 06-Sep-2003 |
| 20 | gotapex.com | 31531 | (-0.47%) | 5 | 29-Apr-1999 | |
| 21 | dealofday.com | 32298 | (-20.69%) | 7 | 30-Aug-1999 | |
| 22 | gottadeal.com | 41769 | (-10.33%) | 4 | (-2) | 27-Jan-2003 |
| 23 | bargaineering.com | 43321 | (-8.26%) | 5 | 01-Dec-2004 | |
| 24 | bradsdeals.com | 46896 | (-25.16%) | 5 | 29-Jun-2005 | |
| 25 | dealigg.com (info) | 49077 | (-2.42%) | 5 | (1) | 04-Sep-2006 |
| 26 | dailyedeals.com | 51822 | (-4.96%) | 4 | 18-Feb-2000 | |
| 27 | dealslist.com | 61301 | (-33.19%) | 5 | 18-Jul-2000 | |
| 28 | ableshoppers.com | 61810 | (-5.26%) | 4 | 08-Oct-2000 | |
| 29 | cheapstingybargains.com (info) | 66319 | (-12.25%) | 5 | 20-Jan-2005 | |
| 30 | bargainist.com (info) | 71416 | (-5.63%) | 5 | 21-Nov-2006 | |
| 31 | hot-deals.org | 71666 | (-14.17%) | 4 | 10-May-2000 | |
| 32 | daddyodeals.com | 72152 | (-9.3%) | 2 | 28-Mar-2006 | |
| 33 | shopping-bargains.com | 72801 | (-6.98%) | 4 | (-1) | 20-Feb-1999 |
| 34 | hotdealsclub.com | 80086 | (-12.09%) | 5 | 27-Dec-2000 | |
| 35 | dealplumber.com | 86825 | (-27.34%) | 4 | (-1) | 17-Jul-2006 |
| 36 | dealhack.com | 89724 | (3.08%) | 5 | 06-Feb-2005 | |
| 37 | dealmine.com | 93701 | (-26.4%) | 5 | (1) | 19-Apr-2005 |
I don’t think google is punishing affiliate sites, but the holidays are over, and last month people needed to pay taxes, so rank is down. I think it may pick up this month.
Also, I think alexa is adding more sites to it’s index, so the % and rank for each site may be going down, but the traffic may actually be going up.
I wonder if some of the drop in Alexa rank can be attributed continuing mainstream acceptance of RSS feeds.
My Google page rank was not affected by the latest update, but my Google search results have been destroyed. I was just starting to get first-page results for some keywords, then the new update came out and I lost a lot of ground. (BTW- I do not use any black hat SEO techniques) That could also be attributed to the very competitive market for deals sites. Maybe the other guys just did a better job with their SEO than I did.
It might be due to that fact that there are over 5 billion deal sites now
punishment: I wish you were right. The comeback hasn’t materialized in several months. There must be something else going on.
Markdown Monkey: I like your point about RSS feeds acceptance. It sure has some merit since RSS users are not accounted for by Alexa. However the vast majority of FatWallet and SlickDeals users go to the forums directly yet these sites ranking is sliding as well.
I think Alexa is just a bad indicator. I know some of these sites are experiencing growth while Alexa says the opposite. Maybe you can use a different metric like the number of “free shipping” deals each site has. Or maybe the number of coupon codes or registered users. Or you could count the number of times each site was mentioned in a blog at Technorati for the past 30 days. Or maybe even average the figures from compete.com, Technorati and Alexa to come up with a unique figure.
There’s no true statistic to use, the Nielsen ratings for TV are a “small” subset of all TV viewers. Just like Alexa is a small subset of all Internet users.
If you want true figures, jump into the Dun & Bradstreet records and pull in the revenue data from these companies to see how much they take in.
-X
Yea, Alexa ranking is sometimes taking too seriously and is not the best indicator for determining traffic.
I run one of the top 10 sites you have listed, and while my alexa rank may be slipping, my stats are still about the same, so alexa is not completely accurate, but it’s not hugely far off either.
The discussion for this blog post is closed. To leave your comments please go to the latest revision of the list