Alexa ranking

[plmerlin]

I see my alexa ranking going down my daily reach and pages view going up....

But is that really useful or is that another gismo?

Can someone tell me if Alexa has any other importance than cheering me up?

Thank you

[Cricket]

I see my alexa ranking going down my daily reach and pages view going up.... But is that really useful or is that another gismo? Can someone tell me if Alexa has any other importance than cheering me up?
Thank you

Alexa ranking is virtually meaningless, so please don't spend even 5 seconds concerning yourself about it. Let me explain - The "rating" is 100% determined by how many clicks your site receives by people who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Take the time to very carefully read their privacy notice. (The Alexa toolbar has "spyware" installed to track your usage and where you visit.)

Since Alexa results are powered by Google, it never gained popularity with the "average" user. The vast majority of users who have the toolbar installed are webmasters and other net related fields. The results were therefore not IMHO, in line with reality. Webmasters would sit and click on their sites on an extremely regular basis to create artificial results. If you read through their "top" results, you'll notice that Alexa has even added a disclaimer explaining that the results may be "biased".

Special note: Yes, the Google toolbar also has programs installed to track your usage, but they openly explain what it is and why, and even tell you how to disable it.

[Crazy_Rob]

Alexa ranking is virtually meaningless, so please don't spend even 5 seconds concerning yourself about it.

Yep, EXACTLY!!

[plmerlin]

Good for me! as I use A9.com search engine I was wondering...

It cheers me up and that's always good :)

[mopacfan]

As everyone else said: Alexa IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY USELESS.
http://www.thejosher.com/smile/images/angry/rant.gif

[SportsOutlaw]

removed the alexa toolbar a couple months ago. Since then, the traffic at my site has increase probably 300% (maybe more), however, my ranking at alexa is now about 90,000 below where it was when I last had the toolbar installed.
Is there a bigger joke than alexa? NO.

[wizteen]

As everyone else said: Alexa IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY USELESS.
http://www.thejosher.com/smile/images/angry/rant.gif

Its only useless if you site site doesnt get much traffic. If you have a site doing 10k or so unique hits a day its a pretty good comparison to other similiar sites. I have a few sites in top 10k and 1 or 2 that get into top 5k every once and a while.

[Gutsy]

Yes, Alexa ranking is pretty useless as i did come to know about the alexa toolbar being installed on the browsers, which affects the ranking. Used to bother about it before but now feel that Google page rank is a much better way of judging the site's potential. Any comments?

[roadies]

Good for me! as I use A9.com search engine I was wondering...

It cheers me up and that's always good :)

Wow, someone else actually uses A9!

Search and visit my site please, I could use the traffic from A9. (ok, just kidding.) :)

[minstrel]

Its only useless if you site site doesnt get much traffic. If you have a site doing 10k or so unique hits a day its a pretty good comparison to other similiar sites. I have a few sites in top 10k and 1 or 2 that get into top 5k every once and a while.
No it isn't. It has nothing to do with how much traffic you get. Alexa rankings are based on a small, rather unique, non-representative sample of internet surfers. Whatever relative or absolute ranking you get with Alexa are highly skewed at best. As others have said, once you add in the fudge factor (the fact that it is easily influenced by multiple clicks on a site or automated clicks), it has no real meaning and therefore no utility as a measure of anything whatsoever.

In a word, it is a flawed and totally pointless ranking measure. Ignore it.

[roadies]

(the fact that it is easily influenced by multiple clicks on a site or automated clicks)

hmm... with the write bots in place it could be very valuable. Gain enough traffic and you could be highlighted in their winners and losers section. I wouldn't mind a link on their homepage for a while.

Alexa could become very valuable afterall. :D

[fromkhun]

there are some usefull tool on the alexa toolbar...like relate link

[minstrel]

You can get that "related pages" feature with the Google toolbar also, or with one of the Firefox add-ons for those of you of the FF persuasion...

I think I had the Alexa toolbar installed for about an hour -- I just didn't see anything there that I wanted or needed and couldn't get elsewhere.

[plmerlin]

Wow, someone else actually uses A9!

Search and visit my site please, I could use the traffic from A9. (ok, just kidding.) :)

I love A9. I work in 3 locations, one office, the store and home. I just logon and get all my bookmarks, i use the dairy too for quick notes... just love it (I know, it's not perfect :p )

[minstrel]

i use the dairy too for quick notes
I generally just use dairy for coffee, toast, and pizza... :eek:

[mopacfan]

I generally just use dairy for coffee, toast, and pizza... :eek:
http://www.smileyville.com/images/shocked/face-aah.png
haha, now that's funny.

[plmerlin]

I generally just use dairy for coffee, toast, and pizza... :eek:

To your point, me too... what about... tipo? :D (sorry sir, typo)

[roadies]

hmm... with the write bots in place it could be very valuable. Gain enough traffic and you could be highlighted in their winners and losers section. I wouldn't mind a link on their homepage for a while.

Alexa could become very valuable afterall. :D


heh, looks like I'm not perfect either. I said "write" bots. oops. :p

[mopacfan]

Oh, comeon now Rodies, I've lost complete confidence in the human race. I thought YOU were perfect... Now what are we going to do? http://www.smileyville.com/images/cheeky/buff0mc.gif

[roadies]

Oh, comeon now Rodies, I've lost complete confidence in the human race. I thought YOU were perfect... Now what are we going to do? http://www.smileyville.com/images/cheeky/buff0mc.gif

I know! I know! How do you think I felt after the discovery.

No need to be rubbing the wound. ;)

[hulkster]

While I agree with most of what is written above (especially that it is a statistically skewed sample), I'd suggest that for sites with "good" Alexa rankings, there probably has some correlation with reality.

For instance, my www.komar.org site had huge spikes in it's Alexa Rankings (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=large&compare_sites=&y=t&url=http://www.komar.org) when my christmas lights (http://www.komar.org/xmas/) went live ... and I thought I was doing pretty decent when I broke into the "top-10000" list ... until I looked at DP's Alexa ranking (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=large&compare_sites=&y=t&url=http://www.digitalpoint.com) - currently 520 ... and climbing - wow!

[Design Agent]

Alexa rankings are pointless unless you want to workout how many webmasters click their own site + have the toolbar installed.

Real life example: 2 clients 1 (Site A) has around 300 or so relevant unique visitors a day (all from search). The other (Site B) currently has between 1 and 5 uniques. Site A = circa 700,000. Site B = circa 200,000.
The reason ? Site B has their homepage as default in IE and the alexa toolbar installed. 4.5 mil (1400%) rise in a couple of months.

The only benefits I can see are
1. Alexa's directory - (its a link to you from a relevant category)
2. The uninitiated might think your site is more legitimate, if they see you with a high rank
3. You might get a good review and have gold stars by your name..(who voted dp 4.5 instead of 5?)
4. Someone might find your site from the 'visitors also looked at..'
5. You can show your clients how smart you or you can be honest with them and tell them its not worth alot. Either way its another 'little extra'

If you have a busy site you are likely to get a reasonable ranking anyway.. So I wouldnt waste my time trying to fix the rise (I would spend that time trying to get an extra link or 2).

http://www.hitwise.com is probably better for real comparisons

[Design Agent]

http://www.sillyjokes.co.uk/alexa/index.php - from anoth post on here. is probably somewhere near as accurate as you are going to get from Alexa ;)

[Chrissicom]

A9 is an Amazon.com company like Alexa, so I don't think you should give one much more positive words than the other.

I personally don't care about Alexa rankings but it is very useful for another thing. Alexa tells me (at least for other Alexa users) which websites people visit who come to my website. So I can either try to get a link back from them or get a better result than them in a search engine. Since I am an Amazon.com affiliate it also helps me choose which products I buy. With the assumption that private Alexa users are people who trust Amazon, I think they will also buy Amazon products therefor I can choose my affiliate products partially by the average Alexa visitor.

[Design Agent]

A9 is an Amazon.com company like Alexa, so I don't think you should give one much more positive words than the other.


Why not A9 is not too bad for a new search engine. Amazon and A9 are both very good but Alexa isn't. So now I have to like everything on a menu in a restaurant because it comes from the same chef ?

Alexa could be something very useful and good, but I see it as a bit of a wasted opportunity, then I know nothing about its stats, costs or return it gets.. so I dont know whether its worth it for them or not.

[hulkster]

As I mentioned above, I agree that Alexa rankings are a bit bunk, and agree anything above 10,000 can be heavily influenced by a handful of people running the Alexa toolbar and having their site set as their home page.

But I did think it kinda cool that it clearly show the spike during the Holiday Season for www.komar.org ... and it's darn impressive that DP ranks in the top-1000 where I suspect the numbers do start to correllate with reality.