A Closer View on Alexa’s Ranking SystemWritten by Abdulrehman on October 14th, 2008
From the time I had started this blog, I had laid a great stress on myself to increase my blog’s Alexa ranking. But as time is going by I am starting to doubt my choice for Alexa as the best ranking for websites on the Internet because as I see it, websites are ranked only by Alexa users and to some extent the Alexa community seems to be extremely less in number. I’ll let a few proofs of my latest test with it support my reasoning:
Explanation: As mentioned this image shows the traffic reach of this blog from 8th of September to 11th of October and according to this, October 11 is the highest with all others being about the average. The daily traffic reach is the same as daily visits as at traffic trackers.
Explanation: Now this is the Traffic Reach of the blog from September 8th to October 11th. According to this, the highest point was reached on October 5 which is almost 5 times the normal reach.
Now if we compare both of the traffic graphs, I can see no sign of comparison between the two. Plus, where is the 5 times of the normal traffic reach on October 5th on Alexa ranking? I can see no sign of any such traffic received by the Alexa ranking and if I was to show some one a proof, Alexa would be the only way and this is what Alexa gives you! So Whom to trust, Alexa or Analytics? But I think like every other normal human being I would also believe in Analytics because that is a complete tracker for my blog as I have included it’s script to track the activity. So I guess that this leads me to only one conclusion, “Alexa is may not be a very reliable source of determining a website’s rank on the Internet”. The reason why I have that text in bold is because I find Alexa not being very reliable but then again it is the only way to check your website’s reach on the Internet compared to other websites.
So overall, my purpose of saying this is that people would not solely rely on Alexa ranking as I have seen many doing that and the ranking is not web perfect as I regard it. It can just be used to gain an idea of a website, rest should be based on real statistics. Alexa ranking is only determined by those people who use the Alexa Toolbar and I suppose those using browsers other than Firefox and IE are not even fortunate to use it. I am sure that Alexa toolbar users are not more than 0.5% of the total users on the internet, and it would be unfair to ask one student to vote out of a class of 200 for the class president, as it by Alexa. So I think the only way Alexa ranking can become better is if more people like you and me started using it so that Alexa can gather more information about the activity of people on the websites as happened on this blog on 5th October, only 1/10th people of that traffic were using an Alexa Toolbar. Go to Alexa.com right now and download the completely harmless Alexa toolbar so that we can help make Alexa’s Ranking System a little better. Do you think that Alexa Ranking is reliable enough and if yes then how do you think it is still reliable?
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From the time I had started this blog, I had laid a great stress on myself to increase my blog’s Alexa ranking. But as time is going by I am starting to doubt my choice for Alexa as the best ranking for websites on the Internet because as I see it, websites are ranked only by Alexa users and to some extent the Alexa community seems to be extremely less in number. I’ll let a few proofs of my latest test with it support my reasoning:
Explanation: As mentioned this image shows the traffic reach of this blog from 8th of September to 11th of October and according to this, October 11 is the highest with all others being about the average. The daily traffic reach is the same as daily visits as at traffic trackers.
Explanation: Now this is the Traffic Reach of the blog from September 8th to October 11th. According to this, the highest point was reached on October 5 which is almost 5 times the normal reach.
Now if we compare both of the traffic graphs, I can see no sign of comparison between the two. Plus, where is the 5 times of the normal traffic reach on October 5th on Alexa ranking? I can see no sign of any such traffic received by the Alexa ranking and if I was to show some one a proof, Alexa would be the only way and this is what Alexa gives you! So Whom to trust, Alexa or Analytics? But I think like every other normal human being I would also believe in Analytics because that is a complete tracker for my blog as I have included it’s script to track the activity. So I guess that this leads me to only one conclusion, “Alexa is may not be a very reliable source of determining a website’s rank on the Internet”. The reason why I have that text in bold is because I find Alexa not being very reliable but then again it is the only way to check your website’s reach on the Internet compared to other websites.
So overall, my purpose of saying this is that people would not solely rely on Alexa ranking as I have seen many doing that and the ranking is not web perfect as I regard it. It can just be used to gain an idea of a website, rest should be based on real statistics. Alexa ranking is only determined by those people who use the Alexa Toolbar and I suppose those using browsers other than Firefox and IE are not even fortunate to use it. I am sure that Alexa toolbar users are not more than 0.5% of the total users on the internet, and it would be unfair to ask one student to vote out of a class of 200 for the class president, as it by Alexa. So I think the only way Alexa ranking can become better is if more people like you and me started using it so that Alexa can gather more information about the activity of people on the websites as happened on this blog on 5th October, only 1/10th people of that traffic were using an Alexa Toolbar. Go to Alexa.com right now and download the completely harmless Alexa toolbar so that we can help make Alexa’s Ranking System a little better. Do you think that Alexa Ranking is reliable enough and if yes then how do you think it is still reliable?
i was right....
I am Abdulrehman Agha, the guy behind 3arn.Net. I am 16 years old, study in grade 10 and live in Pakistan. I started this blog in the hope of making money on the internet, sharing my computer experiences and proving that despite many barriers, one can make money on the internet.
Copyright © 2007 - 2010 
In my option, Alexa does not the best tool for demonstrating for your site since someone could use special skills to increase page views, sure. Although, Alexa has just improved their system, but we should wait for some new in the near furture.
I think google pagerank is the most suitable!.
On the other hand, my friends use Analytics and inform that it’s really good. But I still not use it, there’s simple reason that I do not know how to install this html code :(.
Still await someone help me to overcome this matter !
Dinh Trung
http://www.kienthucdulich.info
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Hey Abdul,
I use Blogger instead. Pls help to advise !!
Dinh Trung
http://www.kienthucdulich.info
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okay and sorry for that
Will remove on my signature !
Thanks for your kind help !
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Alexa isn’t accurate, far from it. It is only their approximation of traffic and is often way out.
As an example: on one of my blogs I was averaging over 2000 visits a day but according to the Alexa graph I was getting less than 100! This particular blog has a lower Alexa Ranking than another of my blogs that does only get 100 hits a day.
I ignore Alexa stats and am surpised that they are regarded by many as important.
Mike.
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I hear too often now that Alexa is too easy to game to be reliable.
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I agree Alexa is not that meaningful but so many people rely on it. Maybe enough people will read your post and wise up.
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I also agree that Alexa is not upto its mark, but keep in mind that most of the advertisers willing to advertise on your blog, prefer Alexa Results than others! And the last time I tried to install Alexa toolbar, my antivirus, alerted me, since it contained some malware, haven’t tried out until then and won’t even bother!
I have also checked compete.com, which is way better than Alexa. You might also want to check its toolbar as well.
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Yeah Alexa isn’t the best indicator. Check out compete.com or quantcast.com
btw I am giving away an iPhone and $500 on my blog!
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As I know Alexa has improved their system.
Some tips to create a back-door is useless now.
Dinh Trung
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Alexa is pretty inconsistent in its tracking but are still widely used compared to compete. I never install Alexa toolbar on my browsers even when I know how Alexa track its result because the toolbar just takes up additional space.
Compete would be a better alternative to Alexa and hope to see more people using it instead.
Wei Liang
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Yeah I have read so many articles saying how to manipulate the alexa ranking so i doubt its a good indication.
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wow, i just now that alexa rank can be manipulated. Tks for your information. Keep on Smiling. Salaam.
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Nice! You caught Alexa in the act, of bad stat tracking. It’s true, alexa isn’t a legitimate source, I wonder why everybody still values it so highly. I just had the same thing happen recently, I had a random spike in my alexa graph, and was like Whoa I must’ve gotten a ton of traffic today. I checked a bunch of other really popular sites, and I’d spiked above most of them, even sites like tylercruz.com and I was like dang how much did I get? It was like 40 visits or something. I was like this is crap lol. Technorati does the same thing. By simply having more time then the other bloggers you can screw up the ranking, by getting on people’s top commentator lists. Neither are very fair, but i suppose that’s what were stuck with. Thanks for sharing!
Jonathan Muller
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People should have stopped taking Alexa seriously long ago. There are plenty of articles illustrating their inaccuracies. What is more important is that serious advertisers don’t take Alexa seriously.
As part of my blogging, I covered the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference (DPAC) in New York the other week. It was a good conference with some bright people there. Google was well represented, as was Quantcast. In one panel, they discussed measurement and the Media Rating Council. The serious metric firms participate. As best as I can tell, Alexa does not participate with the Media Rating Council. Nor was there any presence of Alexa at the DPAC.
Right now, I believe the best metrics come from Quantcast, and I encourage everyone to start using them. Compete also seems to be quite good and Google Analytics are very good.
For more information on the DPAC conference, be sure to read my article, #DPAC - A Narrative http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3258
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