Increasing Alexa Ranking without black hat tricks

[bille]

One of my websites has an Alexa rating that seems much lower than it should be. My impression is that it's low because the site's audience is mostly a non-technical audience that does not have the Alexa toolbar installed.

In any case, I'm trying an experiment to see if I can boost the Alexa ranking without resorting to any "tricks".

I've got a posting up that I'll be using to track progress.

Increase your Alexa Rating, without black hat tricks.


P.S: I know that Alexa ratings aren't terribly important, and that traffic is the usual goal. This experiment is driven mostly by curiosity.

[TNL Nick]

My forum is tied to a video game review site and many of the companies that send us product for review look for a high Alexa ranking. We have scored as high as about 10,000, but our ranking has really taken a beating in the last couple of years, even though our traffic is as high or higher than before.

So most Webmasters scoff at Alexa rankings, but it is important to some others. In the case of my site, our core users are so tech-savvy that they consciously avoid add-ons like the Alexa toolbar because they don't want their browser weighed down or monitored and they already know other ways to block pop-ups and find archived sites.

Compete and other direct-measurement methods would be ideal if only more Webmasters used them.

[TatyanaN]

can you just use an Alexa rank image on the page and that will make Alexa count hits without the toolbar installed on a visitor browser ?

[bille]

Originally Posted by TatyanaN

can you just use an Alexa rank image on the page and that will make Alexa count hits without the toolbar installed on a visitor browser ?

Nope. Does nothing. The only thing Alexa counts as hits are visitors that come to your site that have the Alexa toolbar ( or Sparky in the case of Firefox ) installed.

[TatyanaN]

oh yeah, that is not good if they only count by the toolbar. I think most people who are not webmasters would not install the toolbar. No wonder why my health blogs have so poor Alexa rank but have ok traffic and my brother has a css site with less traffic has better Alexa ranks.

[steveric]

At one point I too realized my alexa rank could be much lower than it was, so I created a post on my blog telling my readers to download the alexa toolbar, it really helped.

I also set my site as my homepage.

[Smaaz]

Originally Posted by bille

Nope. Does nothing. The only thing Alexa counts as hits are visitors that come to your site that have the Alexa toolbar ( or Sparky in the case of Firefox ) installed.

Thats good to know. I always thought that it helps... will remove it from my site then.

[NeverEverClever]

i think you can place a alexa-widget (just search google) on your site. no blackhat, just 60sec work.

all the best

[bille]

Originally Posted by NeverEverClever

i think you can place a alexa-widget (just search google) on your site. no blackhat, just 60sec work.

all the best

Argh. Read the thread, or the article that's linked to. The alexa widget does nothing for your Alexa ranking.

Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but it's asked/answered just above your post.

[chdworld]

I dont think it can Happen That easily..

[Bermy]

there is some tricks >
Ways To Improve Alexa Ranking

[videos]

alexa is only good if you are selling links and want to try to impress clients, otherwise it is easily gamed and manipulated but as you said you already know that...

[bille]

It's working. My 1 week average alexa ranking has moved from 672,691 to 549,964 and then to 362,827. And, without any increase in overall traffic. My one week average has traditionally gone up and down between 1+ million up to around 600,000...so these are higher number than I've seen.

Hasn't moved the three month average yet, but that takes time.

[!Unreal]

Alexa is useless anyway. I dont know why people care about it. The same with PageRank.

[tben2004]

Well my site alexa ranking is like 600,000 and we only get about 100 unqie hits per week.

[bille]

Originally Posted by tben2004

Well my site alexa ranking is like 600,000 and we only get about 100 unqie hits per week.

Yeah...that's the kind of oddness/bias I'm talking about. This site is getting 2,500 page views a week ( if that's what you mean by hits ), and ranks similarly to your site even though it's getting at least 25x the traffic.

[Chancey]

Concentrate on getting more visitors to your site. Alexa works like a competition. You must compete for a spot.

[bille]

Results so far:

1 week average from 672,691 to 196,506
3 month average from 755,698 to 696,133

Since my overall traffic counts haven't changed much, this seems to validate the theory.

Keeping the numbers updated on the article.

Reminder: Both in the original post, and in the article, I point out why I'm trying this experiment. I know that Alexa ranking isn't useful outside of a few situations. Just curious about the easiest way to boost it.

[coloriteman]

Although Alexa is only an average value , the up and rise of the graph will give an inspiration and indication of our performance ..

[Mortgage Guy]

Originally Posted by steveric

At one point I too realized my alexa rank could be much lower than it was, so I created a post on my blog telling my readers to download the alexa toolbar, it really helped.

I also set my site as my homepage.

Using an Alexa toolbar is often burdensome. It slows down the computer , in may case it did.