The Ultimate Alexa Resource Guide
June 25, 2007 4:15 am alexa, amazon, sitepoint
Alexa was founded in 1996 and the company is today owned (a subsidiary) of internet bookseller, Amazon.com - Amazon purchased Alexa in June of 1999.
Basically, Alexa collects data via a user-installed toolbar (there appears to be 10 million users of the toolbar). Anybody can visit the Alexa site and view any sites stats in graph form, even comparing a number of sites on the same graph.
Traffic rank is usually updated every week and shows the stats for the past 3 months.
The Alexa Rank and it’s use of it is a contentious issue amongst many throughout the web. The main argument is that the traffic stats are skewed to webmaster/web-savvy types because they’d be the types to download the toolbar - whereas the average internet user would not.
To counter this, Alexa doesn’t just provide the raw figures it receives from users’ toolbars. It actually estimates a margin that it would think a website would typically get.
Regardless, and whether a good or bad thing, Alexa rankings are widely used by many as a value guide of a site/blog. The two main instances are with Text Link Ads and when trying to sell your site/blog on places such as SitePoint’s MarketPlace.
The Alexa Toolbar
The toolbar requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6+
Alexa basically goes after three types of data: Reach, Page Views and Traffic Rank. Your can read this page at the Alexa website about how they go about this.
For FireFox users you can download the SearchStatus add-on which displays the Alexa Rank (as well as the Google PR) for the site your on - SearchStatus.
Alexa also offers website widgets. Here you can place a simple amount of code and you can show your site visitors exactly what your Alexa Ranking is - check out the widgets here…
Will you ever get to No.1
Quite simply, NO! Unless you’re a Yahoo. MSN, YouTube, Google or MySpace forget about getting anywhere near the top 10 or even the top 100. There is a school of thought that sites that have a ranking of under 100,000 are doing quite well and Alexa are able to monitor them.
Even a blog such as TechCrunch can’t get into the top 500.
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Further reading ….
- Alexa at Wikipedia
- Alexa: The Definitive Review
- The Official Alexa Blog
- 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank
- The Alexa FAQ
- Alexa Ranking Tips and Tricks
- What do those Alexa rankings mean …
- 7 Proven Strategies for Improving Your Alexa Ranking
- How To Boost Your Alexa Ranking In One Easy Step
- Is Alexa an Accurate measure for site traffic? Vote Now!
- 10 Ways To Improve Your Web Site’s Alexa Ranking
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Note: The very popular Statsaholic (formerly Alexaholic) which offered greater graphic options and easier use than the generic Alexa is currently under attack from Amazon (owner of Alexa) - you can read it at TechCrunch.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I LOVE this article. I am this close to breaking into the top 100,000 (I’m practically there to be honest, 200 off, but yesterday I was in the top 50,000). And the “There is a school of thought that sites that have a ranking of under 100,000 are doing quite well and Alexa are able to monitor them.” line made me smile.
Despite what people say i think it is important (due to TLA and things like that using Alexa to rank websites).
June 27th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Did I miss something? Where’s the “ultimate?” Pretty grandiose title for so little meat on the bone. This is a little disappointing.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Hi Rhys - I’m glad you liked this article and hope you keep getting higher in the rankings.
Michael - Ah, I was wanting for a comment like this. Thanks. I could have easily linked to hundreds of resources and written about all the little tricks et al - but I think my “ultmate” title says it all from my perspective: Alexa is not the be all and end all. It has a place in blogging and I think I have done justice to the article with the Further Readings links.
I read all the links before posting and I think I got a pretty decent overview of Alexa. Check out all the links, read them and come back and let me know what you think.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:01 am
Ah, well, Martin, I guess we’ll have to politely disagree on the definition ultimate. I already have the status extension and have seen the widgets. The explanation page at Alexa itself isn’t an ultimate resource, but an expected one anybody should use if they wanted to learn the basics. The links are good information, certainly. I guess I just have a different idea of what an ultimate resource would be. Thanks for responding to my comment! :)
June 29th, 2007 at 8:22 am
This is a great article. Maybe you should do an article about improving your Alexa rank in the future. (alexa redirect, toolbar promotion, etc.)
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
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