Does Alexa Rank Really Tell How Popular You Are

[WarriorBlog]

I am very meticulous when it come to stats. I like to get high stats in everything and that include Alexa Rank.

however, I have notice that many bloggers say Alexa Ranking isn't very important...

Is that true?

[Michael Martin]

Yes, I'd say it's true.

One of my blogs gets several hundred visitors per day, and is ranked 115,000 in Alexa. Another site gets about double that (And thousands more page views!) and is ranked over 500,000.

The difference is that the first blog caters for a techy audience, meaning it does very well with Alexa. :)

[Jeremy]

Any stat that is measured by visitors who install an optional toolbar or plugin of some sort will never be an accurate gauge of popularity.

[ses5909]

Alexa is just a gauge and not much more. Sure it's fun to see your rank get higher, but it isn't a good indicator on how popular you are.

@michael - I would have thought until recently that blogs targetted at techy audiences didn't do nearly as well in alexa as most tech people don't use IE and until recently that was the only browser the Alexa toolbar was available to. I know once the toolbar came out for firefox, my alexa rank shot up, yet it wasn't as a result of increased traffic.

[rodaniel]

I kinda think of Alexa as a little bit of a self-perpetuating scam. That is, Alexa stats are important because, well... they say they are. And since they've 'conned' so many people into going along with that notion, it has grown.

And I also hafta agree with Jeremy that Alexa's dependency upon a user-installed toolbar will undoubtedly skew its results...

[goldfries]

And I also hafta agree with Jeremy that Alexa's dependency upon a user-installed toolbar will undoubtedly skew its results...

It's not totally dependent on toolbar, you can have an Alexa widget installed on your site and it'll work too.

The difference is that the first blog caters for a techy audience, meaning it does very well with Alexa. :)

Not all techies use Alexa. And being techie, usually they're the ones that remove unnecessary plugins, and techies usually use Firefox - it doesn't come with Alexa plugin. :) Alexa was once pre-installed on IE but not any more.

There are plenty of non-techie site that does well in Alexa. Malaysia's most famous blogger ranks 18,864 on Alexa - and it's a personal blog. :)

For me, I look at it this way :-

Alexa ranking doesn't tell you how popular you are on the Internet. It tells you how popular you are among people who are recorded in Alexa. :D


ADDED

Any stat that is measured by visitors who install an optional toolbar or plugin of some sort will never be an accurate gauge of popularity.

then again you could have all the webstats from Awstats, Webalizer, Google Analytics but they can't tell you how popular you are vs the rest of the world either.

:) All in all, I'd say all these stats work together.

[Simon]

A couple of the Webmaster and SEO extensions for FireFox include pinging Alexa. I have one which displays the alexa rank of every site, at the same time as getting that information it also tells Alexa I've visited that site. So it's not just the Alexa toolbar. But mostly, I think it's pretty useless. I've heard compete (http://www.compete.com/) is a bit more accurate as it gets information from more than once source. And sometimes the compete and alexa rank on a site is completely different (this site for example, Alexa = 52,284 Compete = 237,271)

[Prettyfem]

Alexa is not all that accurate. Alexa gets its rankings data from browsers that have the Alexa toolbar installed.

[SarahG]

@michael - I would have thought until recently that blogs targetted at techy audiences didn't do nearly as well in alexa as most tech people don't use IE and until recently that was the only browser the Alexa toolbar was available to. I know once the toolbar came out for firefox, my alexa rank shot up, yet it wasn't as a result of increased traffic.

The search status plugin for Firefox has been around for a couple of years at least I'd say. That has always contributed to alexa ranking as far as I'm aware.

It's not totally dependent on toolbar, you can have an Alexa widget installed on your site and it'll work too.

That's just a myth. Alexa's traffic data only comes from toolbar users. Putting a button on your site simply shows your rank and provides a link through to Amazon, nothing more. If you check on Alexa's FAQ you can see where it states that the data comes from toolbar users - Alexa Web Search - Help (http://www.alexa.com/site/help/?index=12)

Also a blog I read tried an experiment by adding the button to sites without any Alexa data, and it made no difference - Alexa Buttons DO NOT Help Alexa Rankings (http://www.45n5.com/permalink/alexa-buttons-do-not-help-alexa-rankings.html)

I've also tried this myself on a site with 1000+ daily visitors and a rank of 1.5 million. The experiment started to look good with the rank slowly decreasing until one week it shot back up again with extra daily visitors, showing that the button made no effect. Trouble is, rank is a measure of visitors and page views, so 1 visitor making 20 page views will produce a better rank that 5 visitors with 2-3 page views.

The metric is pretty flawed for anything over a low rank, however unfortunately with advertisers taking these metrics into account we still need to strive to improve the rankings.

[goldfries]

That's just a myth. Alexa's traffic data only comes from toolbar users. Putting a button on your site simply shows your rank and provides a link through to Amazon, nothing more. If you check on Alexa's FAQ you can see where it states that the data comes from toolbar users - Alexa Web Search - Help (http://www.alexa.com/site/help/?index=12)

Also a blog I read tried an experiment by adding the button to sites without any Alexa data, and it made no difference - Alexa Buttons DO NOT Help Alexa Rankings (http://www.45n5.com/permalink/alexa-buttons-do-not-help-alexa-rankings.html)

alright. thank you for the correction. :(

now i'm wondering whether to remove it.

Trouble is, rank is a measure of visitors and page views, so 1 visitor making 20 page views will produce a better rank that 5 visitors with 2-3 page views.

according to the FAQ (http://www.alexa.com/site/help/?index=12) page,

multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview.

based on that, 5 visitors with 3 page views is still better than 1 with 20 isn't it?

[SarahG]

The same URL, not the same domain ;) So if that 1 person viewed 20 different pages on the site then it would result in 20 unique page views over 5 visitors viewing 3 unique pages each thus 15 unique page views.

Of course it depends on their way of using the reach and page views in their maths as to whether 5 visitors with few page views is better or worse than 1 with 20, but it gives an idea of potentially how it could be determined.

[goldfries]

The same URL, not the same domain ;) So if that 1 person viewed 20 different pages on the site then it would result in 20 unique page views over 5 visitors viewing 3 unique pages each thus 15 unique page views.

hrmmm. :bigsmile: never reply when i'm sleepy / headache.

you're right. i keep thinking of DOMAIN instead of URL.

i'm still thinking of whether to remove those things from my site, or perhaps put them in some other page.

[Michael Martin]

@michael - I would have thought until recently that blogs targetted at techy audiences didn't do nearly as well in alexa as most tech people don't use IE and until recently that was the only browser the Alexa toolbar was available to. I know once the toolbar came out for firefox, my alexa rank shot up, yet it wasn't as a result of increased traffic.

Hmm... I've always thought that technology/webmaster sites did well out of it.

The Alexa toolbar and FireFox plugin are only useful to webmasters and other techy people. It shows a few stats about the site that only techy people will be interested in. Normal users won't have the toolbar/plugin installed because it's of no benefit to them, and they won't have heard of Alexa any way.

[ses5909]

I think the alexa toolbar used to come installed by default in IE. I tried to google what version it was but had no luck finding it so I could just be going crazy :D

[Golgotha]

I haven't checked Alexa rankings in years...

[goldfries]

Hmm... I've always thought that technology/webmaster sites did well out of it.

The Alexa toolbar and FireFox plugin are only useful to webmasters and other techy people. It shows a few stats about the site that only techy people will be interested in. Normal users won't have the toolbar/plugin installed because it's of no benefit to them, and they won't have heard of Alexa any way.

Michael, techies are not always interested in Alexa. only bloggers (and advertisers) are.

I've been a techie for the past decade or more, and I've known about Alexa since it started and I've never even bothered about rankings until I started my blog. :)

As I mentioned earlier, the techies the ones who would remove unwanted plugins. the not-so-techie people would leave the plugin there.

The less knowledgeable they are, the less they fiddle with configurations, in fear of screwing things up.

[SarahG]

Never heard of IE coming with Alexa by default. Not the standard version anyway. Of course if you installed a special version it could do.

I'll admit, I didn't pay much attention to Alexa until a couple of years ago when I got into money making sites (again, after the spurt in the late 90s). However I always had Alexa with the SearchStatus plugin on firefox.

But I agree with Michael, it is often the case that more technical orientated visitors will have the Alexa bar / extension installed. Usually designers/developers which will encompass bloggers too.

[goldfries]

technically oriented AND with interest in knowing alexa rankings. or else they would've removed or avoided any unnecessary plugins. :)

[Harrison]

Alexa is not important to be your target in blogging but it is very important if you want to make money by selling ads space on your blog. Usually advertisers will judge on your blog through Alexa ranking.