what's worth more orb of alchemy or chaos orb?

I would say orb of alchemy givin' that you can 20% quality a normal item with less stones and scraps to get a 20% quality rare.

Why are most of the currency sites stating that 3 alchemy's equal 1 chaos?

Am I missing something here?

NVM I figured it out, after you 20% quality it you can just re rare it.

It's definitely not 3 to 1, it's more like 1 to 1 with maybe 4 stones/scraps thrown in or somethin'.

Chaos Orb is more valuable than Orb of Alchemy. The exact ratio may vary, depending on league, time, other stuff, but I believe it's currently 2 Alchs per 1 Chaos. Don't rely on currency sites, as some of them are run by RMT (Real Money Trading) sites which have their own ratios that suit their needs...if you want to know what's the value/ratio of some currency in relation to some other currency, ask around in chat, someone will eventually tell you, and it will (mostly) reflect the actual, ingame, values.

For crafting purposes
chaos is more worth than alch because:

1) you found your nice white, high base level item with maybe 5link or 6link, you add the quality and alch it and.....bammm you do have a rare 5/6 link without any mods you need.
Usually you will chaos it till you get the most desired mods.
(I suppose for super rich poeple you would even make it blue and reroll with alt and then eternal regal exalt for the perfect item but that requires a looooot of loot)

2) maps: you will not find too many so you want to alch and chaos the few you have

p.s. before endgame, if you have enough (too many) alchs you can occasionally try to alch something to get an upgrade, if needed and rng is nice to you. But not too many! (I assume here exist a lot of different opinions)

For trading:
chaos are more rare than alchs. Endgame people need them for maps -> higher value

Perhaps what you're missing here is the knowledge that links are expensive. It's very hard to find a bunch of whites with the proper links you want, so you can keep rolling alchs. If you want to do it on the same item, you need an alch and socuring orb, and now you're getting close to the price of a chaos.

This is also true for maps(you aren't just going to dump maps that got crappy mods via alch).