Is Alexa.com Smoking Crack?
Posted in online marketing, pagerank, seo on May 7th, 2010 by fubarrioTags: alexa, alexa rankings, alexa.com, dofollow, online marketing, pagerank, seo
One of the imperfect metrics that webmasters and would be advertisers use (outside of raw Google Analytics data) and Google PageRank is the Alexa rating of a site. For a listing of the top sites in the world you can go here: Alexa Ratings
Alexa.com has made a business out of providing metrics to the marketplace on various sites. Alexa’s data is aggregated from several sources, one of which is (I believe) the alexa toolbar.
The Alexa ranking of a site, is the ranking of a site’s popularity among all web surfers.
As you can see from the above link, Google.com is #1 (duh)
What’s kind of cool, is that you can individual searches for sites like corporateraiter.com on the site by doing a search. For CorporateRaiter’s alexa.com rank you can go here CorporateRaiter Alexa Rank
Madness!
According to alexa.com corporate raiter is among the top 300k sites WORLDWIDE. And, ranked 82,977 in the US.
C’mon.
There have to be at least 83,000 porn sites that are more popular than Corporate Raiter.
In fact, I have some blogs on other topics that get more traffic that haven’t even broken the top 1MM on Alexa’s rating scale. While I’m not complaining, I wanted to point this out since I mentioned it as one of the criteria that I would be tracking as part of my dofollow experiment.
On that measure I would have to say that the dofollow experiment was a smashing success.
As far as PageRank goes (a criminally lagging indicator) I had much better results on some subpages of mine using another technique. I’m going to do some more experimenting to see if I can narrow down the specific reason that this “other” technique had so much success in getting pagerank *quickly*. One of my posts actually has a pagerank of 4, and another has a pagerank of 3.
Let me know what you think about the alexa algorithm and your experiences with it?
Is Alexa worthwhile at all, or just a tool to dupe unsuspecting newbs in the Internet space?
Sound off. Leave a comment. It’s dofollow.
Alexa is very useful for comparing websites traffic and provide other useful details.
i beg to differ.
how much time it takes to boost alexa rank? thanks
well…see for yourself….if you go back to the beginning of the blog experiment you can see that the entry is dated and explains what my rank was at the time. i take one more snapshot in my experiment update. and then, this update as well.
This is great! I had no idea what alexa rank was or how it could be affected by creating a dofollow blog. I am eager to learn more. You’ve found yourself a loyal reader, for sure.
Thanks, Rake.
It’s difficult to totally agree or trust on Alexa. Because they give ranking priority for those who downloads their “alexa tool bar”. At least that’s what I think.
As i report on social media news and trending websites around the world – Alexa is one of the most useful tools to measure the traffic on a trending website.
Problem with Alexa is they only properly rank sites they are interested in. Since being acquired by Amazon they have gone very lax in updating a majority of websites.
The inbound links number cannot be trusted, Alexa is only properly ranking the 1000 most popular websites. The rest do not get indexed properly.
Yeah I think Alexa is great for getting a first impression on how strong a website is. The exact numbers and ratings are not to be trusted though.
Alexa rank is not based only on traffic from their company toolbar. Many small websites create their own toolbars via Alexa’s service and people who use it on that way (even if they maybe know it) create traffic too. But even I am very confused by Alexa’s rankings. I feel as if Alexa data is only valid for the alexa community. They clearly have a data sample that does NOT match the rest of the world. So the data they present is no good, unless you’re just interested in analyzing the Alexa community, or getting ranked high in their community.
One thing Alexa does offer is the ability to ‘claim’ a site so you can provide the amount of traffic your site does get per month to get a ‘accurate’ rating in Alexa. I also think the information they provide doesn’t really matter much until a site breaks into 10,000. Heck, I’d go so far as to say 25,000.
You are right on with this, I really dislike Alexa as it completely skews data towards tech sites – I mean “average” users don’t use the alexa toolbar, so the sites that they tend to visit are obviously going to have a worse ranking since they aren’t being counted.
I have used alexa in determining worldwide site’s popularity. Everyday my personal or blog site increase it’s ranking. It’s an excellent tool because you can determine which site have higher ranking and which not
I would say that the rankings vary on different states? I wonder why people also prefer Alexa ranking rather than page rankings.
Well, I once had a site with 100 pages indexed and more visitors than a site with 5000 pages indexed and less visitors (in the same niche), yet they gave the site with more pages indexed a better alexa rank… So much for the traffic rank accuracy.
Alexa is just not very accurate. You can surf your own site with Alexa toolbar installed and get a ranking of less than 250,000. Meanwhile, I have a site that gets around 1,600 visitors a day but get a rank of only 480,000.
@ Luis: That is the way it works. But the question is: Would the world be a better place without alexa rank?
And I think to this is no, simply because it is good for getting an approximate estimation of a website.
q Chat Seymo: That’s what I use Alexa for, too.
I removed alexa toolbar because it confuse my website stats…
Alexa always seemed odd to me beuase its stats are driven by a toolbar, and to be honest, I have never met anyone who used it.
Hi There
Just discovered Alexa, it’s a good tool for checking all those folks who claim to get 1,000,000 hits a day and only get 100. Mind you I still don’t believe it 100%.
I don’t use Alexa (I don’t need it) but otherwise is very useful
For me Alexa is good for my affiliate marketing efforts it allows me to check on my competitors web pages. I don’t have there toolbar but I use them frequently.
Thanks for the info. I thin its hard to decide one way or the other about Alexa. I’m still up in the air about it. It seems like they give some sites priority based on trivial details and ignore others that you would imagine to have a higher ranking.
I think Alexa has its good things and not so accurate things. I use it sometimes but it is not my main site for my ranking. What other sites do you guys use?
I don’t think that any traffic measuring system will ultimately be either accurate of fair. Unless we started seeing ISPs collating data, no one system will ever measure every visit correctly. So imperfect it may be, but Alexa is a good solution.
Yeah I would have to agree that Alexa being so high in pagerank does sound a little off.
we need alexa.com
to expose our website ..
to all parts of the world
give us more information …………
The flaw with the Alexa system as I understand it is that visits are only recorder by those with the plugin.
As a result sites with tech / internet savvy visitors who are more likely to have the plugin score better than possibly more popular sites that have a different demographic.
I guess it’s a metric like any other, but I wouldn’t bet your life on it.
Thanks for the above information andrew..:-)
Alexa has been one of the important factor in deciding the website performance. Although i insist that Alexa should be more clarified to people who’s not aware of it.
I tend to disregard Alexa. I would rather try and pay more attention to how many actual visitors I receive per month.
Alexa’s data is quite useful but shouldn’t be taken as gospel. How many people actually have the Alexa toolbar? Most of those people have it installed on their work PC. So we’re tracking website data from a selection of geeks while they are surfing the web at work. That’s probably why you’ve got a better ranking than a lot of other more ‘private’ sites
I dont actually use the Alexa toolbar, but I am forever checking my website rankings on Alexa to see whereabouts my site is, and to be honest I am rapidly losing patience with it.
According to Alexa my main website has the same number of incoming links it has always had, even though I have specifically commented on dofollow blogs to get the backlink, and know that the links are still in place and are dofollow.
In addition to that my main website has made it to page one of google for a competitive keyword phrase, and has increasing traffic every month, yet Alexa actually shows it going backwards.
I am losing faith with Alexa, which is a pity because I wanted to start checking my rankings for my new blog internet marketing products reviewed.
There are many ways besides Alexa you can use to check website stats. Instead of complaining why not just use another product.
I’m using the alexa and I am very pleased with the results I recommend to use the alexa.
alexa.com is good tool for seo
when you have a large amount of alexa does it mean it drives more traffic to the site?
Fine information, many thanks to the author. It is puzzling to me now, but in general, the usefulness and significance is overwhelming. Very much thanks again and best of luck!
I think the Alexa-ranking is quite usefull. But mainly because of the lack of good alternatives. There are simply no ranking-sites that are accurate right now. For an aproximate estimation of a website Alexa works fine.
I haven’t used Alexa that much, I’m just beginning in internet marketing and I have heard that it is not that useful for SEO purposes.
Just like the poster above has said, Alexa is the only option nowadays.
P.S. the part about the Corporate Raiter and 83K porn sites is funny
Alexa really used to be a big deal…..Not so sure anymore though
ok, so obviously i need to do an article on comment spinning and comment spinners. i let a few go in here that are “obviously’ comment spun by a machine by way of example….will get to those in a bit.
Nice read! Can anyone tell me how alexa knows about the traffic a website is getting? I mean like in Google analytics or for webmasters tool we need add some code in our website but there is nothing that alexa wants and still it shows everything..
Also, i have seen many times that Alexa ranking do not improves if you use traffic exchange methods but will improve huge if you get traffic from Google or any other search engine or any kind of reference traffic…
What is the reason behind this?
yes, alexa is on crack! ha.
Most of those people have it installed on their work PC. So we’re tracking website data from a selection of geeks while they are surfing the web at work.
Alexa ranks are skewed in favor of webmaster related sites. You can improve your Alexa rank just by surfing your site with the Alexa toolbar or Firefox extension search status. If your site is a blog you can raise your Alexa rank by joining advertising networks like Entrecard and Adgitize.
I don’t know if the value of an website is only on what is there on the website. Are lots of porn sites with much clients then coca-cola , but that doesn’t mean that are better or more value.
I’m a media buyer and I pay no attention when sites give me their Alexa ranking, its a certain type of demographic who install the toolbar and it gives distorted results
Allexa ranking doesn’t satisfy me but thanks for article
In my experience tools like Alexa will have such a rough ranking data that its ridiculous. Seriously, in comparison I have been using Google’s keyword Tool to find searching data about keywords and its so off thats its almost unbearable. Tools like ALexa should only be used to get a very rough idea where you stand.
I’m just starting to understand Alexa and all of it’s features. I like the ranking system it’s been helpful in managing our website and reach. I like the new Alexa toolbar. It is inconspicuous and easy to use. I am encouraging all of our staff to use it and learn from the information it tells us about the Internet market.
I’ve used Alexa.com for years to compare competing sites within a niche over time.
Used that way it works pretty well. But it’s not much use for comparing between niches, because the audience of different types of sites have a different likelihood of having the toolbar installed. That’s why Internet Marketing sites look more popular than they really are – they get a boost from a higher % than normal of their users having the Alexa Toolbar installed.
i have used alexa a few times and didnt find it near as good as the google keyword tool.
Alexa is very rough but I do use it to get a rough idea of ranking and site linking to mine.
It has bee known for so long now that alexa’s system is full of flaws. You can easily increase your rankings just by installing alexa’s toolbar and visiting your site yourself (don’t do it if you’re running adsense, will result in low CTR).
Just take it with a pitch of salt really don’t get too hung up on it, look at it in context along with other indicators, you could be searching for the rest of your life for an exact science…
i have used alexa a few times and didnt find it near as good …it’s nice product…..
yes alexa is very rough but i used to compare competing sites with niche over time.
You are absolutely right. I do not even understand what our alexa ranking is based on. It fluctuates madly and does provide one ounce of usable data to help me promote a website.
i dont really trust with alexa algorithm…. my site is less then visitor in a day, but the rank is has a massive narrow in a few weeks. what did i do is only put alexa tool bar, thats all, how can they put my site good? i am not satisfied with that, sound tha like the rank is fake.
It’s really hard to rely all the time in one basket. It’s better to use different options as well.
The alexa toolbar is heavily skewed towards the “make money online”/internet marketing crowd because this crowd makes up the largest portion of their alexa toolbar user base. So is should be used primarily compares sites that are within these niches. My favorite tool is actually Compete. Not only does it assign a rank to a website, but you also get a snapshot of the keywords that are sending the site traffic. Believe me, I’ve run several of my own sites through this tool and the keywords tend to be spot on. Excellent tool for doing some “research” on your competition.
I have been just analyzing your post it’s very well crafted, I’m exploring on the internet looking for exactly how to begin this weblog thing and your site definitely is quite impressive.
I would not rely solely on the Alexa ranking as this is based on people who have installed the toolbar and then visit websites. Not very accurate, just like google’s page rank
A new insight for me about alexa, thanks a lot…
Of course! they never did other things. alex don´t give you serious information.
Honestly, I never bothered tracking my website’s rank on Alexa. I know that a lot of people usually do this but I don’t really know the purpose. Does Alexa ranking really matters? Whether we admit it or not, Google ranking is the one that matters most. So what is Alexa ranking really for? Can anyone care to tell us? Thanks.
I have been trying to raise my alexa and finally I gave up, I feel happy and free now!
The only tool I trust on rating or ranking a website is Google, nothing else.. Alexa might have been in this kind of industry in past few decades but I don’t know exactly how its credibility faded suddenly because of these issues.
It’s difficult to totally agree or trust on Alexa. Because they give ranking priority for those who downloads their “alexa tool bar”. I agree with Luis on his opinion, and that is just the social rule, isn’t it? only beneficial things to those organizations will obtain priority. Anyway, it’s just a reference for websites, who knows if the figures are correct or somewhat different from the reality. I don’t think Alexa’s got too much time and too much money spending in such movement.
i’ve tried to install Alexa toolbar in my new firefox 4.0 beta 2 but its not compatible.. Alexa not upgrading their tools or somethin’ wrong with firefox?
I am just starting with SEO and I am looking for the best way to increase more traffic on the site and what should I consider first so that the site would have a high page rank. I am willing to learn more about different tactics. Right now I sometimes get irritated because everytime I search for site to build links there are lots of porn sites. It is really disgusting.
Alexa is proding many others informations about the follow of one website. Actualy I am happy with their services
Alexa doesn’t do much for me or for my business. Oh well. I always thought it was overrated anyway.
At first alexa ranking system looks good, but once you starting digging in it get worst. To be true we do check our alexa ranking every now and then but never paid attention or gave important towards it. Alexa rate your site within there community and i don’t believe every internet user have there toolbar on every browser, its only professional how use it.
But yes, they are developing with a good speed, and might be a big player in analytic field, but now stats provided by them are not that reliable as other analytic sites.
Ofcourse the Alexa PageRank isn’t perfect. However neither is Google PageRank nor Sistrix visability. But no one would deny that those are indeed useful tools for SEO, you just have to understand that you don’t have to do their every bidding, just so your PR goes up.
Yup, Alexa is a complete waste of time, I remember when I first started to get interested in doing seo for my first site, I used to check it regularly, then i discovered the stats on my hosting account and Google analytics, then I realized how inaccurate the data was, it’s a waste of time, but I’m sure there are plenty of people still viewing it.
Great info. Your article is very good structured and has good info on dofollow. I recomand it to everybody.
i have used alexa a few times and didnt find it near as good as the google analytics that I run on Evasive Media
The flaw with the Alexa system as I understand it is that visits are only recorder by those with the plugin.
As a result sites with tech / internet savvy visitors who are more likely to have the plugin score better than possibly more popular sites that have a different demographic.
i was reading about the alexa algo and i found that there are autosurf sites throught which you can increase your alexa rank and they work really fast.
hey, …. hahahaha deliceful.com awesome name…..can’t believe it would be THAT hard to win the SERPs for “Long Island Lice Removal” Service….just remember, the one who figures out the most different ways to saw the same thing (over and over) usually wins in SEO. this reply should help you out too
hey, i love the rosetta stone stuff….are you selling rosetta stone dvds or tapes? or is it online access or what? thanks for the comment….doubled you up in my reply. peace.
so dr. golshani…..what exactly is breast revision implant enhancement? sounds painful.
i think i messed up your link when i approved it….why? cuz this is lame bot flattery. one more chance to write me a real comment before i send your link to the spam cleaners…make it count!
I appreciate many aspects and services that Alexa offers the world for free, but what I like about them most of all, above all, is that they are pure and simple.
no opinion… just data in the purest most plain and helpful way they can balance it, so that it is easily understood.
Of course, no script analytic script is going to be 100% accurate. The best place to find the MOST accurat6e stats for your own site is to check your hosting server stats (If you have that capability).
I use opensiteexplorer.org.
I dont think alexa will be around much longer
Just like google replace msn and yahoo in terms of search. Alexa will be replaced by another competitor because they don’t give accurate results.
There are many ways besides Alexa you can use to check website stats. Instead of complaining why not just use another product.
Alexa is great tools. Pretty good post about alexa. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon
Alexa can produce some really odd results sometimes (against true analytics of a site) but as long as you just use it as a guide or reference then it’s a great free tool
Nice Post… I dont rely on alexa much.. but our clients in US give importance to it more… so we also have to work on it…
i just agree with barstool guy i don’t think alexa will be more in market in next couple of months
Ha, luv the ‘it’s dofollow’ line. I am starting a similar experiment. What are your findings so far?
I would say its an indicator, nothing more. Google Adplanner is much more accurate.
I more like Google Rank,but what the difference between the Alexa Rating and Google Rank???
puma shoes
puma kicks
puma sport shoes
i have used alexa a few times and didnt find it near as good as the google keyword tool.
Well, according to me Alexa is increasing competition among the websites and it is giving opportunity for SEO specialists. But, Alexa don’t provide the accurate rights.
Alexa is considered as the best-tool for checking out the competition between websites as well as traffic on the website. But, I don’t found accurate results via Alexa. I think, Google will soon introduce new tool like Alexa.
I agree with you. I cant understand Alexa either, I think my web sites Alexa rank is getting crazy. Who cares we got Google anyway. Great post by the way. Thanks.
I think I’m right in saying that Alexa rank is based only on visitors that have either the Alexa toolbar installed or an Aelxa component on another toolbar. So it is a bit like how they do the TV ratings – extrapolation of a small audience sample. This might be why you are seeing some odd results.
alexa takes too long to update their links information
whatever, alexa gives a rough idea of a website, the amount of traffic it attracts. It is useful.
Alexa rank is a traffic indicator. It show how popular your website is and it does not effect your website rank.
Meanwhile, I have a site that gets around 1,600 visitors a day but get a rank of only 480,000.Alexa can produce some really odd results sometimes (against true analytics of a site) but as long as you just use it as a guide or reference then it’s a great free tool
yap alexa it is useful and I lite it
Not only the data of alexa is inaccurate, but it can be manipulated also. But regardless of that, people still using the alexa rank to judge our website.
Alexa is a highly unreliable tool, as it only users who downloaded the toolbar. I would use compete, but its for US TRAFFIC only.
Alexa always seemed odd to me beuase its stats are driven by a toolbar, and to be honest, I have never met anyone who used it.
I saw that happen, and I also don’t understand it. I see a site that has great traffic and it has 6+million Alexa rank, while my website with less then 1k visitors a day is ranked in top 500,000. It doesn’t make sense sometimes at all.
i should tell everyone that don’t believe alexa rank,they r lied to u.u can also check it.
Alexa tell us our website ranking in the world.. i think everybody use this website to get ranking
It’s really hard to trust alexa’s ranking. There are ways out there in which you can ‘game’ the alexa results.
Alexa is very weird, I have some sites with high traffic but low alexa rank and others with only low traffic, manily bots and robots and getting in the top 10k! I don’t pay a lot of attention to Alexa rank and I don’t even take it in consideration while buying a website.
I got a bad experience buying a website ranked top 100 in alexa and after I was surprised that the site is hardly making $5 per day!!
Alexa is really handy as a free tool to get an idea of industry movement. It can be a little erratic, but it is free!
Alexa is considered the best tool for the control of competition between websites and web traffic. But found no accurate results by Alexa. I think Google will soon introduce a new tool like Alexa.
I don’t really believe with alexa counter, we can manipulate that with alexa booster
Alexa is one of the most important site who gives lots of useful tools. xD
If you use Alexa and know what to do in it its a rally powerful weapon when you need to have statistics and detailed information
Personally I am using it and checking it once I have a request by customer
Alexa is a bit difficult at times, I would use compete or quantcast to verify my website traffic.
Cheers,
Bandorah
All I know right now is Alexa is not that trustworthy.
All I know right now is Alexa is not that trustworthy.
Alexa has done nothing really but to provide a ranking system that only works if one has installed their toolbar,,,so their system is not accurate at all,,i dont know and understand why ppl use them for any kind of business……….
Thank you. This is a great information, Alexa.com has made a business out of providing metrics to the marketplace on various sites.
Well, I also don’t trust Alexa blindly because I have found wrong result many times. I have a Golf website and my friend has also has a sport site. Sometimes, I get good visitors (in Google Analytic) but still showing lower rank in Alexa in compared with my friend site.
great post, most of the advertisers thinking alexa only providing good results and rankings, I think alexa provides ranking based on those who are using alexa tool bar, that sites get good ranking. This fact all are know then why all of the advertisers asking alexa ranking
Alexa ranking is not accurate. you can get ranking but you can manipulate that with alexa booster.
Alexa ranking not important but some company adverting very need it rate your website. => it imporant
i won’t believe alexa ranking because its not showing correct ranking, i would like to tell everyone alexa is a scam!
AFAIK google does not count porn, illegal and sites like doing commercial for poker and stuff like this.
so, ‘interestingly’ i haven’t done anything to this site since early may (!) and i’m still clocking an alexa ranking of 247k worldwide…bizarre.
some of the comments have been enlightening….some of it i was already aware of as well….i dunno, it’s probably time to come up with a new test
Alexa.com establishes your ranking by figuring out how many visitors your site receives. Being amongst the Alexa top 10000 sites honored by Alexa will validate your business as a credible one making it that much more attractive to your clientele. With the inevitable surge of web traffic coming your way, competing businesses will be left out in the dust. Your business is given the intimidating assignment of marketing in an extremely tough industry.
I am not sure the Alexa rankings are good! Because our web agency marketing target audience on France (We analyzed on Google analytics, the true traffics comes form France much higher than India), but the tool says its from India than France….There were lots of experimental taken, the simple conclusion is, if you do much dofollow link the Alexa rankings is increases!!
Though Alexa is very useful to measure a site traffic,page views etc.,but it can be easily manipulated as well.So sometimes the information provided by Alexa may not be accurate enough.
I kind of always thought Alexa was a joke. I think the place a lot of emphasis on their toolbars which not everyone downloads.
why we need to care about Alexa? For a good traffic website, content always most important.
I agree.. Alexa rankings are about as accurate as political polls!
i won’t believe alexa ranking because its not showing correct ranking, i would like to tell everyone alexa is a scam!
Well if you have to rely on alexa you better prospect for oil
Ahaha i love the title. i had to read the article (and thanks for making me read it) just because of the title
no Alexa ranking is important in adverting very need it rate your website
wow….! Very nice post. You share a bundle of information about alexa rating. You stuff is really very helpful and informative. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Alexa’s newest feature, Search Terms, is not just for the big and highly sophisticated brand name sites…Alexa ranks sites based on tracking information of users of its Alexa Toolbar for Internet Explorer and from integrated sidebars in Firefox and Chrome.this is given good page rank..
I disagree…there isn’t one porn site better than the corproate raiter
ryan
the reason that it’s always higher in india is because people are outsourcing monkey-boy marketing work to india like link building so they are crusing through your site (probably) with tools that show alexa rank…(the alexa toolbar in disguise)
I don’t have any idea about alexa ranking and I am looking for the source that would give me idea about rankings. There are lots blogs about it but I am frustrated because I did not get the information I needed. Good for me that I have came across with your blog. Hope to read more blogs from you. More power, and thanks.
It’s also the links that get me , i am sure i always have many more than what they acknowledge as my total , yes make me laugh lots of popular porn sites up there at the top. maybe you will be in the top one hundred once the .xxx extension starts up !
Alexa is very useful to me. I like alexa.com and I think there are no reason not to like alexa.
I have always been suspicious of Alexa rankings and I am looking forward to seeing what conclusion you draw with your new technique!
Alexa really used to be a big deal…..Not so sure anymore though
.Very nice sharing. Thank you
don’t believe in their ranking system as 3 days before my site ranked 25,816,412 and today it has came down to : 9,798,247 what my site has done in these days no idea ???
It’s difficult to totally agree or trust on Alexa. Because they give ranking priority for those who downloads their “alexa tool bar”. I agree with Luis on his opinion, and that is just the social rule, isn’t it? only beneficial things to those organizations will obtain priority. Anyway, it’s just a reference for websites, who knows if the figures are correct or somewhat different from the reality. I don’t think Alexa’s got too much time and too much money spending in such movement.
I think the Alexa-ranking is quite usefull. But mainly because of the lack of good alternatives. There are simply no ranking-sites that are accurate right now. For an aproximate estimation of a website Alexa works fine.
Hi,I am Medyum. Thank you. This is a great information, Alexa.com has made a business out of providing metrics to the marketplace on various sites.
Alexa rank doesn’t matter, if your site is giving you business.
Personally, I think Google Analytic s give more clear picture than Alexa.
I no longer pay attention top Alexa, there are better things to do and accomplish for your SEO goals.
alexa.com is good tool for seo
I use the Alexa Toolbar and I think it’s sometimes useful to have an idea about the popularity of a website, however, I agree that it’s far from being accurate in most cases, because Alexa only counts visits coming from browsers with the Alexa Toolbar installed or through an Alexa widget.
i dont belive on alexa rank because it dont show correct rank of an web-site
Its a good tools, but sometimes i think its not providing accurate result.
Personally I know a guy is gay when we meet and i feel the need to check my fly.
Alexa makes no sence for me. Why would a huge company like Google depend or even trust the results of Alexa. For me it´s just a waist of time
Generally I use Alexa for viewing backlinks that competitors are using. The incoming links tool is fairly accurate, though it includes nofollow backlinks.
Alexa is a big fraud…i don’t understand why people take it for reference
Alexa has done nothing really but to provide a ranking system that only works if one has installed their toolbar,,,so their system is not accurate at all,,i dont know and understand why ppl use them for any kind of business……….
Alexa is OK for quickly judging a websites popularity.
In my experience Alexa is almost worthless. My web site have a good Alexa traffic rank, but real visits are quite low, for sure a lot lower than Alexa rank suggest.
Sadly there is no other way to know the actual popularity of a web site, even page rank is not a good indicator.
Position in the SERP for the main keywords is perhaps the better approximation of the site popularity.
Yes, Alexa is ok to judge the performance of the website.
Alexa is worth toss. It’s incredibly easy to just have a couple of browsers install the toolbar and rapidly increase a site’s Alexa rank (been there, done that).
Alexa rank is used to chow the traffic on the site. Many advertisers considers this rank ,while placing an ad on a website.
But Alexa rank is not a true measure of traffic.It is measured only on the basis of those users,who have installed the alexa rank toolbar.
They must be smoking crack! Somebody tell my why http://mainstreetlaw.com isn’t ranked on there? It is the number one destination when looking for an illinois criminal defense attorney.
I have come across your website on more than one so called “dofollow” lists. The competition for “dofollow” search traffic has increased dramatically recently so I imagine your back link traffic on these types of sites has multiplied. It does look like your “dofollow” experiment has been a success in regards to rank.
People are so gullible that they would follow any metric system, even if it doesn’t really play a roll in the bottom line of conversion rates. Heck, people still think google PR (Page rank) means something and it’s one of the most useless metrics out there. People need to focus on what matters and start looking at their server stats. That’s whats going to really help structure a solid marketing campaign.
I have long questioned Alexa’s measurement of inbound links. It is best used as a tool not to be used as an exclusive source. Probably the best use for Alexa is to see what backlinks competitors have. Now that can be useful …
I really don’t like Alexa. I had it removed from my site.
Thanks for sharing the information…
Am a beginer in the inernet marketing, and i have heard about it.
But is it really useful for SEO??
As far as I am aware Alexa is months behind in collecting data and showing accurate figures, even though it displays that it’s figures are updated daily.
I tend to stick to webmaster tools and checking out the competition, and analysing sales on a historic basis in comparison to present figures.
I’m still on the fence about Alexa. The results seem kind of erratic to me. I pretty much stick to Google Analytics for my stats.
I only use Alexa for a ROUGH gist of how websites are doing, I dont fully rely on it.
Alexa.com just on of the seo site..
Yeah, I’ve always wondered if you can trust private companies with this kind of power and influence. There’s just too much money to be made online and they’re going to want to be a part of it. It’s not enough to simply generate the statistics and post them, you have to have some direct influence over the web. It’s a bit scary the kind of power that Google has too, but as with all things, there’s actually no guarantee they’re going to be around in 10 years. Just look at the imminent demise of Microsoft, they simply cannot compete with apple these days (is it that obvious or is it just me).
Alexa is so unreliable! I have no idea where and how they came up with their algorithm and some sites just don’t seem to be in the right order.
in general i think the pagerank is very important than alexa
alexa is really a big help for me.. thanks for sharing this information
Alexa is good, but it is very vague. I have seen it work well, but I have seen it work not so well. I wish it was more accurate. I think there are better tools out there.
It’s pretty interesting to look at the data, the number of porn sites always gives me a giggle!
Really there is number of tools but 1 is unique its google.
Thanks a lot for sharing such a great deal of articles. A very nice perspective and article. This has been a great help and I already applied some of the tips in my site. I really appreciated that the people who will give an effort to shared this post. Its so very helpful to those individuals wants to start their business And Great information.
is alexa not 100% based off traffic? maybe i’m mistaken.
Alexa statistics are popular in the world big giants accepting them. did you know before assigning a adsense id Google officials also check sites Alexa rank.
Useful information about alexa..I am very happy to read this article..thanks for giving us nice info. Fantastic walk-through. I appreciate this post.
You cann’t trust Alex ranking even google PR and link operator seems to be dead and not giving 100% result.
May I know how can i check visitors per day on alexa? My friend say that alexa is the best site and its give 100% result.
Alexa.com can’t possibly be accurate. There are all sorts of factors that can screw up that number…..internet marketing being the culprit.
its not all that bad, Alexa does provide *some useful stuff you know..
We have a couple of websites who’s Alexa ranking bounces wildly. I’m not sure what causes the big swings but we really don’t put much weight on their rankings anymore
The thing with alexa they do get the latest information from the data they gather from people using there tool bar.
I think alexa.com is good tool for seo .. Good sit for seo working web pages …!
I almost check my competition on alexa, but I do some additional research as well..
compete.com pops to mind..
Your question is very deep and personal experienced needed.
In short I want to say that now a days Alexa Rank is also giving us an great idea of the current status of our site.
Because Alexa, now a days updated very fast than other tools.
Thanks for pointing out this important issue…..!
I dont look at Alexa anymore. Realy, couse the results arent shown as they should be,… so Alexa is inimportant to me,… my oppinion.
Alexa is a good source to just take a look how your website and other websites are moving though its not accurate and you can’t say its a trusted opinion
Alexa rankings are subjective at best.
Well Alexa has its own way of ranking pages but it shouldn’t be used as an exact evaluation parameter..Its pretty rough..Also now that Google page ranks haven’t been updated for months Alexa ranks has gained much more popularity than it actually deserves…
So I’m guessing from your experiment DOFOLLOW increases your page rank? Is that because of the wave of new commenters creating “unique” comments? Or is it because search engine crawlers can now crawl your blog? I’m new to the SEO stuff, can anyone answer that?
absolutely we can analysis website traffic but how i can do increase of alexa rank
i trust alexa.because alexa use alotof statics for listin web sites.
I think Alexa ranking is highly over-rated. It is so popular cause it was one of the first to have a ranking of your site. If you don’t have an Alexa toolbar, then your rankings are way cause it can’t really compare, where as Google page rank doesn’t need a toolbar installed.
Alexa ranks only her friends! It’s useless unless you have a gigantic site… As for the dofollow and the pagerank, i think that of course it increases it due to all this newly created unique content. Google loves it!
Some interesting points raised here. Just accept the ranking, not much you can do unless you increase your links!
Alexa is a good source to just take a appear how your website along with other websites are moving although its not correct and you cannot say its a trusted viewpoint .thanks
Alexa is good for my affiliate marketing efforts it allows me to check on my competitors web pages.I almost check my competition on alexa, but I do some additional research as well..
compete.com pops to mind.
I’m new to the SEO stuff
Hi,
I agree alexa gain the respect and credibility for there sites maintaning good work for providing as the page rank..
As an SEO analyst myself I do not pay much attention to Alexa rankings, I think its a very imperfect web metric. SEOmoz provides better rating tools
There is nothing of a value in Alexa rank. If page rank helps your site to get come up higher in search results Alexa does not help you in any way.
I came to the conclusion that the Alexa ranking would have some bearing on my serach results. I started at a point where my alexa ranking was 14M, it is now down to just under 2M after weeks of submitting my site to directories, commenting on do follow blogs like this, and backlinking with Anchor Text from blogs I set up through Wordpress and Blogger, which seem to get very got Alexa ratings from day one without any effort. However, I have seen very little, if any effect, of my website listing moving up through the google listings for any of my keywords even though my Alexa ranking has soared. (Needless to say my google page rank hasn’t moved for eons). Arnold from West Bridgford
Alexa is very useful for websites for indicate traffic show.
Only about 2 percent of internet users use alexa toolbar so i think it just has relative accuracy.
Hi I am working as a SEO from last two year…. I think if you create few high PR forums profile then you will get Alexa rating very faster…
its difficult to say the ranking but it really helps in seo
I dont look at Alexa anymore. Realy, couse the results arent shown as they should be,… so Alexa is inimportant to me,… my oppinion.
as for me it seems to be the truth… actually I don’t use it anymore
For me PR is still important to tell the real good sites or blogs. But when it comes to SE rankings i think high PR really doesn’t matter at all. Sometimes high PR sites outrank by low PR sites on rankings. Alexa indicate traffic stats.
i trust alexa.because alexa use alotof statics for listin web sites…
think alexa is very accurate at all, especially with websites that only get a few thousands views a week
Once I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new feedback are added- checkbox and now every time a remark is added I get four emails with the identical comment. Is there any method you may remove me from that service? Thanks!
I agree that alexa is very inaccurate. I admit though that I still use it to review any progress made on my site. I read that the results are some what subjective and the more I read into the alexa rankings the more it confirms my view point that alexa is not the most accurate tool for measuring success.
Thank you for this awesome article been doing some research on image searches
and this has been very informative.
Thanx
Well I think Alexa has it most right than wrong, but of course there’s a lot of wrong, coz it’s all based on an algorithm, and a lot of factors can skew the results.
Off the subject of alexa’s algorithm. But has anyone been affected by the new Google Panda algorithm? Funny thing about my site: USA Job Blast – Job Search. I get page 1 rankings on Yahoo/Bing but now I’m nowhere to be found on google. If anyone has any suggestions on regaining top search results in google, I’m all ears.
well…see for yourself….if you go back to the beginning of the blog experiment you can see that the entry is dated and explains what my rank was at the time. i take one more snapshot in my experiment update. and then, this update as well.
I came to the conclusion that the Alexa ranking would have some bearing on my serach results. I started at a point where my alexa ranking was 14M, it is now down to just under 2M after weeks of submitting my site to directories, commenting on do follow blogs like this, and backlinking with Anchor Text from blogs I set up through Wordpress and Blogger, which seem to get very got Alexa ratings from day one without any effort.
I am used to Google but for sure Alexa is also awesome. Anyway, nice post. Thank you for sharing.
big hug post alexa rankings the more powerful website also show reputation of each websites .
How to search for do-follow backlinks that is specific in a country?
Thanks fubarrio for very good information.
i like alexa.but another like google:D
we know what you need
how to seo
Tips
givemeaway-freebies
ı love alexa
good article. Alexa is very useful for comparing websites traffic
I am not so sure about that. Thanks much for sharing this great information.
I’m not sure how useful alexa ranking is now. Your google ranking seems to be more important.
Hey, if you are popular, you are popular right? Just keep doing whatever your doing,