Alexa ranking intergration

[gooner]

Been thinking about method's to get a new directory site up a running using a ranking system (still not settled on the theme but it will most likely be based around web development / website building resources).

One possible method for ranking sites could be to integrate Alexa's ranking stats if that's possible.

I know I know, Alexa's ranking stats are wildly wrong ;) and can be manipulated using automated tools (http://www.google.com/search?q=alexa+rank) (check Adsense links)..... but assuming the top 10,000 sites stats are reasonably accurate and that (as people have suggested) they're more accurate for web design related sites given that more web developers have the toolbar installed, I feel it could be a good option to go with.

Has anyone looked into integrating Alexa's stats into one of their sites or as a stand alone tool?

I see this site (http://www.freewebsubmission.com/) is currently using them - probably updated manually...

Thanks,

[digitalpoint]

I believe Alexa sells a data feed to make queries or you can purchase a file that contains all the sites listed in ranking order from Alexa.

[gooner]

Thanks, found the info about their XML feed here (http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/xml_feed.html) (US$499 for 200,000 Requests).

[schlottke]

Doesn't seem to be the best deal to me- who cares about the Alexa top 100,000?

[North Carolina SEO]

Gooner, this sounds rather interesting to me. Yes, I fully understand the concerns already expressed here. Customers are often looking for "measurable results". Having something like the Alexa rankings can give some "comfort" although not complete. As long as the disclaimers are in place, I think this could work out rather nice.

Look forward to seeing the progression.

[Will.Spencer]

You don't really need to pay.

You can use the Alexa XML data feed for free from an HTTP request like this:

http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&dat=snba&ver=7.0&cdt=alx_vw%3D20%26wid%3D5881%26act%3D00000000000%26ss%3D1600x1200%26bw%3D1594%26t%3D0%26ttl%3D7241%26vis%3D1%26rq%3D39&url=http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com

Just swap your URL at the end of that URL. :)

[mxlabs]

thanks for the link Will.Spencer

it looks like an alexa query with something that might be a screen resolution (1600x1200), am I right on that? also how sure can I be that the above URL will still work in a couple of days... ?

[novasoft]

The url you sent WillSpencer, bombs after a few hundred queries.
i used 10 threads and then even reduced them to 5, but looks like alexa bans your IP for excessive requests :mad:

Satya

[Help Desk]

Yes, Alexa blocks you for certain. I have expericence the same thing.

[novasoft]

anybody know a workaround??

is the TTL parameter some timeout thingy?
aka "time to live" perhaps??


Satya

[mykoleary]

Or, you could do this two pronged.
1) worry about getting the sites for the directory
2) use a tool to crawl and get average google PR (which is likely much more reliable than Alexa rating) for each site and sort based on this.

You could also do them together by doing mass searches on Google for related terms and use the resultant search URLS as a seed for the PR crawl tool, only saving sites above a certain PR.

[john_loch]

Gooner,

This is a great idea. It's about time someone decided to take it a little more seriously. If you'de like a few ideas to play with, I've been prepping something similar myself.

It's not complete, as i tend to code first, do the pretty stuff later, and it's augmented for reciprocal linking.

Some of the things it considers are:
PR, links on page, inbound links, directories (checks for G,Y,D), Metas, anchor text, etc etc.

If you'de like a look at it PM me.

The best feature is what I call 'Ultra Search'. You can search and sort the results by any of the criteria assessed. For example, you can search for sites in the cars section, that don't force anchor text, have a maximum of 25 links on their links page, have a PR > 4, and use keyword xyz in metas.

It's usable at present, just not very pretty.

Cheers,

JL

[misohoni]

couldn't you do something like this -

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=YOURURL.COMS

[Help Desk]

True, you could screen scrape if you wanted too, but that always seems so cheezy to me.