I check the Alexa top sites index once in a while to discover newly booming sites. Yesterday I came across Vube.com, which is presently listed on Alexa as the #133 site in the US, and #71 site in the world. Surprising, since I'd never heard of them. Compete states 14.5MM monthly users in the USA.
Vube is a song cover contest site which lists videos, allows users to vote, and awards prizes to the winners.
Video view counts shown are through the roof (millions), even for videos that were posted 2 years ago on youtube (e.g. Thinkin Bout You - Frank Ocean Cover by Emmalyn, 10.8mm on vube in 4 months, nearly 3MM on youtube in 2 years)
Looking at the Alexa upstream sites [1], I see 10% of their traffic stems from adcash.com and various other advertising-related sites are represented in that list as well.
Is it really so easy to manipulate these stats? Did I miss a popular trend?
[1] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vube.com