Quantcast seems to have a very interesting businessmodel, they'll list all sites they care to find with mediocre stats, and if a site owner cares about the digits other people can see they'll have to use Quantcasts code to get the stats right. Though some like Shoemoney.com have compared their stats even after installing the code and found that Quantcast is off by a mile and a half.

I spotted Adland at quantcast, with stats beyond the pale not anywhere near the awstats stats and webalizer stats that I get from my own logs (the only things I'll ever trust and I use two just to be able to compare). So I asked them how I could get Adland removed from their pages, since I couldn't find this in the FAQ.

The answer is, you can't. Now that sucks. I asked politely and Chris Martelottis who seems to reply to every forum and blog posting about Quantcast (and possibly every email as well, poor dude) replied:

"Yes, I do not have a way to do this. I'm sorry."

I'd rather not mess with embedding third party images and other shit that screws up my SSL cert, which makes users of Adland freak out when they want to upgrade - and rightly so since the secure connection is no longer secure. So I can't use their embedded code to correct those bad numbers, and I can't get them to delete the entry. Nice. (Yes, I did try. Breaks my SSL cert. Fucked.)

Chris went on to say:

"As an audience measurement service we operate much like Nielsen for TV - if a program airs, we rate it."

HA HA HA yeah, but only idiots believe in Nielsen ratings, like Caff points out those numbers might as well be grabbed from thin air:

" They only measure 5,000 households. Out of how many in the US? Currently about 109 million and almost 115 million by 2010. You do the math. Yes, I know Nielsen claims that their measurement is representative of the entire population but I'm not sure how .004587% if the population is representative. If you were doing a scientific experient, you'd be laughed at if that was your sample. So why is it OK for measuring ratings?"

Why indeed. Chris goes on to mention Alexa and says:

"We are constantly working to improve the accuracy of our models, however there is only so far that panel based research can go given the immense fragmentation and specialization of websites (content and geography).

You can see this margin of error in the estimates we have for your site Vs your internal metrics. That's precisely why we launched the Quantified Publisher program (www.quantcast.com/quantified-publisher.jsp), so that the industry could move beyond outdated panel approaches for audience estimation.

As a collaborative and open ratings platform, we very much want your audience represented in the best possible light. Unlike other ratings services we allow publishers direct participation, entirely free of charge - however there is no obligation."

There is nothing outdated about churning your own server logs to find what quantity of traffic you have. Only your own logs show the real data, which you can grep any which way to learn how many and which bots visits, how many users come from where using what browser and so on. And as I said to Chris: "...with Alexa, it's pretty easy to ignore their silly numbers, as it requires toolbars installed. Most people know that they're flawed even if some dorks think their numbers have any value. They're probably related to the dorks who still believe that Nielsen ratings have any value.*

I still would like my site removed, and I am asking politely. So, is your answer "this is not done"?"

...and his answer was indeed, this is not done. I hate crap that I can not opt out from. Sure, it's not the same as Alexa, requiring a toolbar - but it is the same as any of those old free site stats out there requiring me to embed something on every page to count - talk about outdated. I don't have a need to do that for me, since I have my own server logs that I can check and I can keep these stats if I fancy showing people them. Not allowing me to opt out from their public guesstimation of my traffic really sucks. Chris might get a little peeved that there are no comments here where he might defend Quantcast, but if he really wants to get on the good foot with me I don't need to hear any more fluffy words about how Quancasts works, I just want to see my site OFF their listings.

* see Techcrunch "Alexa's make-believe internet