That sample size difference could matter depending on their methodology. If they do countrywise segmentation the sample size for many countries may be very small and any resulting error would get amplified by the weighting.
40,000 sites / 200 countries = 200 sites per country on average. How many participating sites do they have in smaller countries?
It is true that if they have a tiny sample in a large country, their result could be very wrong for that country, and leaving it small and not size-corrected would at least leave that error small.
But, even 200 sites per country is enough for a proper random sample (that's about the same size as in election surveys). Even more so when you consider that a site is not a single observation, but reports data about all the users visiting it.
>But, even 200 sites per country is enough for a proper random sample
Yes, but my concern is that they may only have a handful of sites (or none at all) for a long tail of smaller countries.
>Even more so when you consider that a site is not a single observation, but reports data about all the users visiting it.
True, so it depends on whether or not users of popular international sites from a particular country are representative of all users from that country.
Comments
That sample size difference could matter depending on their methodology. If they do countrywise segmentation the sample size for many countries may be very small and any resulting error would get amplified by the weighting.
40,000 sites / 200 countries = 200 sites per country on average. How many participating sites do they have in smaller countries?
It is true that if they have a tiny sample in a large country, their result could be very wrong for that country, and leaving it small and not size-corrected would at least leave that error small.
But, even 200 sites per country is enough for a proper random sample (that's about the same size as in election surveys). Even more so when you consider that a site is not a single observation, but reports data about all the users visiting it.
>But, even 200 sites per country is enough for a proper random sample
Yes, but my concern is that they may only have a handful of sites (or none at all) for a long tail of smaller countries.
>Even more so when you consider that a site is not a single observation, but reports data about all the users visiting it.
True, so it depends on whether or not users of popular international sites from a particular country are representative of all users from that country.