Top Silver Bullion Dealers: an Analysis

In this article we have an analysis of the top silver bullion dealers on the web. The best way to determine the most popular dealers is to go by website traffic - the more the merrier.

A Method of Ranking Silver Bullion Dealers

You could search the web for "top silver dealers." But what results would you get? You would get the opinions of others. What are their methods of evaluation? Why did they choose who they chose? Are these lists slanted toward one company or another? Look at a few of the "top" silver dealers lists. See if you can tell which criteria they used and whether they were well researched or not.

I decided to use the power of the web. The method I used is simple. Here are the steps and results.

1. Using a top keyword research tool, (I used SBI's "Brainstorm It"), determine the top keyword search phrases related to buying silver bullion. The following are the keyword search phrases silver bullion buyers would most likely use when they are interested in buying silver.

• buy silver
• silver prices
• buy silver bullion
• how to buy silver
• buy silver bars

2. Search Google.com and Bing.com for the keyword phrases above.

3. Record all the silver bullion dealers listed on the first page of the search engine results, for each of the keyword phrases, for both Bing and Google. You disregard any of the ads. The reason for this is that anyone can pay for an ad. That doesn't mean they are a popular website. You also disregard any Ebay or "deals" sites like Nextag etc. You only choose individual dealer sites that are listed on the first page of the search engine results.

The reasoning here is that the search engines have already done lots of work to determine the most popular sites. They are, after all, in the business of making money from search results. They are constantly refining their algorithms to display the most popular websites for a given search. The dealer sites displayed on the first page are the most popular bullion dealers according to Bing and Google (not including the ads of course). So now you have a list of bullion dealers that have been "recommended" by Google and Bing.

4. Determine the top 10 dealers based on Alexa global traffic rank. This gives you an additional third party evaluation for the sites already recommended by Google and Bing. For those that don't know, Alexa is a company that ranks websites based on traffic.

What is Alexa global traffic rank? From the Alexa site: "The global traffic rank is a measure of how a website is doing relative to all other sites on the web over the past 3 months. The rank is calculated using a combination of the estimated average daily unique visitors to the site and the estimated number of page views on the site over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of unique visitors and pageviews is ranked #1."

In the Alexia Global Ranking system, the lower the number, the higher the ranking, with 1 being the highest rank possible. You can get the latest information from Alexa at alexa.com.

5. Check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to eliminate any "questionable" dealers.

The lack of accreditation or rating by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) should not necessarily be construed as representing a negative view of the dealer. You can get the latest information from the BBB at bbb.org.

See the resulting Analysis Table above. Dealers are listed in order of Alexia Global Rank only. The rankings listed were recorded at the time this article was written. Use the above table as a guide for further research only.

Bottom Line: I would use any of the above silver bullion dealers. Of course, whoever could offer the best price at the time (including shipping) would be the best choice. A lazy way to approach buying silver would be to only buy from those who have a free shipping special. Enjoy the process. Enjoy your silver.