That's part of the problem... there is no real way to rate a website. I'll tell you what I do when looking to purchase a website... this gives me an idea of how much traffic it gets and if its worth the purchase. I run over to marketleap.com and check out the backlinks for all the search engines and the link popularity. I then do a search on google and other for the name of the site to see if people are talking about it and how many. Then I check the Page Rank of some of the pages. Maybe, just maybe I’ll check alexa for the fun of it. After looking at all that I get a good idea what the site is worth, how much traffic it gets, and what MY ranking for it is.
Alexa is a datamining tool. I got a domian registered at the end of nov and its currently in the 200,000 mark - The site gets 1/2 a visitor a day (+ a guy I know who has it set as his homepage). Just install the toolbar and keep visiting your page until you have the result you want. Saying that I like the movers and shakers & top 500 - this is where it starts to get more accurate.
Regarding Alexa - someone show me one site in the top 10,000 that "faked" it's way there. I threw the opportunity out there for everyone last year who was talking about how easy it was to fake/manipulate Alexa ratings to go ahead and do it - no one has and the suggestions that people made (Alexa Booster and such) barely put a dent in the Alexa rating. The test site still is up and running, www.alexatest.com. Details about the test here and here. I think with Alexa any rating under 10,000 is pretty impressive. Of course Alexa is only a sampling of data, but it's a larger sampling of data than most other similiar rating systems or options.
I know of a few Ad Agencies that check alexa anyway as a basis for site worthiness. Sad as it may be I've seen it done.
You may have a point about very low Alexa scores, GFC. However, using it as a measure of "worth" of average sites or sites in the "buy and sell" forums is pretty much useless.
It's a total waste of time. If you are targetting a corporate market, for example, then none of your audience will be even able to install the Alexa toolbar anyway.... If it was a blog then the technorati links would be a much better gauge If you are serious about buying advertising surely properly audited stats would be the basis for your marketing spend?
The above 10,000 ranking shift by tens of thousands on a whim so I don't give them much value at all. When I look at sites that are below the 10K mark though they tend to have a constant high flow of traffic. I typically don't use Alexa as a factor when buying...but if a site I was considering had an Alexa mark under 10,000 (averaged over 3 months) that would possibly influence my decision. In my opinion it's 100 times easier to fake toolbar displayed PR than it is to fake a sub 10,000 Alexa mark.
Sub 10,000 i would probably agree, I pushed a new site to around 50,000 before I got bored (manually). So thats as much as I know
As I have posted many other times... I think that alexa has great value. I have been phoned many times from advertisers and other people who got the contact information from alexa. Advertisers are not stupid and can spot fake alexa traffic too...
True, I just thought of another benefit too. Getting your site listed on the "People also looked at these sites" section for popular sites.
Thats probably what I see as the best point of alexa. Its free, so if you can get some random clicks from it, sure can't be all bad right? Who cares if I don't have a use for it...as long as someone does, and that someone visits my site from it.
Good point, although I have a feeling that's another way of saying, "There's one born every minute"...
Great thread. but somehow i came to the conclusion that it is better to be ranked in alexa than not. although i do agree with most of the worthy sceptics. but as usu as i am a noobie, and that too very first blog i'll try evrything. thanks guys. Hair loss treatment n hair care( home remedies) http://hairclinic.blogspot.com/
You should have come to the conclusion that it isn't going to help you at all, unless you're trying to sell to someone who is under the illusion that it means something.
Alexa is a stupid concept just to keep "Alexa" in webmasters heads and lingo... It only reads visitors who have the Alexa tool bar installed and can be manipulated very easily... For example our directory website receives a couple hundreds visitors per day and has an alexa ranking of about 127,000. On the other hand we have a client's website who receives about 20,000 visitors per day. His alexa ranking is around 600,000. You do the math!