Alexa Rankings are a lot like Google Page Rank updates to me, when the Google Page Rank increases I enjoy screaming about how excited I am to show a Google Page Rank 4. Meanwhile, when Google Page Rank has an update and my Google PR drops I have 10 reasons Google Page rank doesn’t concern me. Now since this post isn’t about Google PR let’s get back to Alexa rankings.
The more I seem to focus on my Alexa rank the better it seems to get, and when the getting is good I can be seen screaming about ways to increase Alexa rank or trying to start some funky Alexa review chain, that actually worked very well btw. All though there is really no proof that having more reviews on Alexa does anything to effect your Alexa ranking it’s still a nice way to support the blogs you read and a great way for other potential readers to see how others view your blog. Anyway, if anyone wants to do another review chain let me know.
Alexa Ranking.. Big Deal
Alexa Ranking is only as important as any one person makes it, some people take Alexa Ranking as a serious tool for measuring one’s blog or website growth. Since there is really no rhyme or reason as to exactly how Alexa comes to figuring out the Alexa Ranking for any specific site there really is no telling how useful it really is, your Alexa rank can increase meanwhile your traffic might be less. On the reverse side of things your Alexa Ranking can decrease meanwhile your SERPS and overall blog traffic can be seeing an increase, go figure.
1. Alexa Traffic Rank
Alexa traffic rankings for Extreme John.com.
When the arrows all green, it’s all good.
2. Alexa Reach
Percent of global internet users who visit Extreme John.com
3. Alexa Page Views
Percent of global pageviews on Extreme John.com
Problem: Decrease in pageviews
Resolution: More internal linking
4. Alexa Page Views User
Daily pageviews per user for Extreme John.com.
Problem: Decrease in pageviews per user
Resolution: More internal linking
5. Alexa Time on Site
Dailt time on site for Extreme John.com.
Problem: Decrease in time on site
Resolution: Write longer articles, more internal linking, add video, promote discussion, add pictures
6. Alexa Search %
The percentage of visits to Extreme John.com (or your site) that came from a search engine.
Now that we took a look at most of the Alexa rank stats for my blog I have a question for you, what’s the big deal? Do you consider Alexa rank to be a useless tool that you truly never check or do you take Alexa ranking as a serious tool for measuring your blogs success? Leave a comment and let me know what your thoughts on Alexa rankings are.
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{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
Holly just did a bunch of posts in an attempt to measure their effects of her Alexa ranking. Turns out the technical posts did increase her ranking, but she’s going to continue writing non-technical stuff as well. I haven’t written anything technical yet have gone from a ranking of about 579,000 to 469,000 in a week. Neither is a great number, but I have no clue as to why the better ranking. Does it matter to me? I like having a better rank, but since I have no clue as to how it works it can’t matter that much, can it? Unless Alexa is going to start paying me the big bucks, then I would have to say no.
.-= Anne´s last blog ..Amazon Groove – 30 Free Songs =-.
yes, alexa ranking is very important if you want to place ads on your blog.
.-= Kevin S @Free Vector Graphics´s last blog ..Funny Emoticons 2 =-.
in my point of view, alexa ranking is not important at all. maybe alexa ranking effect to PR however, the real traffic is more important. I want quatity instead of quality.
.-= John´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
It is just some kind of good Alexa “marketing” which persuade people to trust it? Or most of people simply don’t think about its inaccuracy?
From my point of view, I can safely say that Alexa ranking might be the right solution. It may prove useful for sites with very good traffic that attract highly targeted leads, since Alexa focuses more on the traffic that Web sites receive rather than on links to it.
Twitter: thuesen
For me, Alexa ranking is not a big deal. I rarely look at it. If it wasn’t because the bar was at the bottom of my firefox, next to pagerank, I probably would never pay attention to it.
It can be a useful tool to get an idea of how visited another site is, compared to your own, for instance.
But it depends on how they measure it, it used to be only users surfing with alexa toolbar who had influence on the rankings of a website, but I don’t think that many people use the toolbar anymore, so they must have found another way to measure ranking.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Free “Become A Blogger” Roadmap =-.
Hey, you have a very good blog, its excellent information in its field. You have done a great job, keep doing it for to help, people like me.
Didn’t get the idea :/
.-= Annie´s last blog ..About Me =-.
Alexa Rank was not important 2 years ago. There are a lot of ways to fool Alexa ranking and many people manipulate the ranking of their own website. If you are selling text links with TLA, Alexa plays a very important role in the price of each links.
Since Alexa has improved their system and not many people are able to manipulate it, many marketers use Alexa to analyze their competitors and the market. I normally use it to analyze my competitors traffic and websites which are ranking on page 1 for different keywords I’m trying to rank for.
From my opinion, it is a very useful tool. Thanks for sharing your view about it.
Sometime Alexa rank didn’t notice a lot because Google PR is the one that gets all the attention. I notice that when me and my friends looking at our blogs they are talking about PR4 and PR3 and so on didn’t mention Alexa.
Twitter: myblog2day
Alexa ranking is not important if you’re not tending to make money from advertiser since that’s what advertiser looks at. I used to check my alexa ranking almost daily since I have the alexa toolbar, I believe that the blog traffic is reflected with the alexa ranking, I’ll see what can I do if there is an decrease on the alexa ranking.
Since I tend to make money from my blog, so Alexa ranking is important for me, but I don’t really care about it because I know if your traffic is huge, your alexa ranking will be improved accordingly. So, nothing much to care about.
Cheers,
Lee
It matters to me. If you’re ranking drops, then something is changing. Less people are visiting your site. Depending on your websites objective this can be bad or super really bad. I would assume advertisers would want to spend their money on blogs/websites that generate a lot of traffic. Alexa shows them just that. I am always about quality over quantity so maybe the ranking shows an increase in random visitors who aren’t sticking around. Your loyal visitors could still be around and making you money. Sooo, I guess you can say the number means something or nothing depending on how you look at it.
Alexa ranks lets you know if you are doing good at getting traffic. I know there are analytics systems like Google Analytics which can do a better job at checking how you are doing in terms of bringing people in. However, Alexa provides something you can use for benchmarking and that certainly goes a long way to help you become better than your competitors especially when they rank around, say 20,000 and you are at 100,000. I normally use Alexa to compare my blog to other new blogs like mine.
.-= Kwame´s last blog ..The Importance Of Linking to Your Old Blog Posts =-.
Twitter: donpower
Hey John!
As a relatively new blogger, I find the Alexa ranking gives ME some confirmation as to whether or not I’m even in the “ballpark” when I t comes to my blog being read.
I get a lot of great comments on my blog so I know that I have a grouop of regulars and that is fantastic. But I was ttruly surprised the first time I learned how to get Alexa to “index” my blog – or whatever the Alexa equivalent term is…
I expected my blog to be in the “millions” but I was very pleasantly surprised when I found that it was in the 300,000 territory world wide and 75,000US. Now those stats muight not impress anyone but me 0 and that’s fine – but the main point is that it confirmed that even though I don’t really know what I”m doing when it comes to blogging, at least I must be doing SOME THINGS right!
And that is important. Bloggers need encouragement – especially at the “tipping point” after about 3 months when you have to decide whether you are going to continue blogging or go back to an office cubicle (hahaha!).
I just checked my stats now and I’m 241K worlswide and 87K US – so I’m happy with that for the time being…
One thing I don’t understandf trhough is that it always lists my “sites linking in” as 1 – even though I know I’ve had hyperlinked links to my site on many differnt blogs (not just in the comments). In fact, you mentioned me in at lest 2 or three blog posts’ body copy and yet none of those incoming links are listed…Any idea why not?
Cheers and thanks!
- Don
.-= Don Power – BLOG with POWER!´s last blog ..Going Local – How do You Use Social Media to Boost Local Business? =-.
Twitter: AlisonMSmith
Amen.
One of my sites gets about 30,000 hits per month, but has never looked like much at all on Alexa. Others that don’t get remotely that much traffic look much better.
It’s mystery meat to me. I ignore it. :yawn:
.-= Alison Moore Smith@Start Blogging in 1 Week´s last blog ..7 Things You Must Avoid When Choosing Your Wordpress Theme =-.
Twitter: dragonblogger
Your Traffic rankings on Alexa.com are incredible bro, and I suffered DOS outages which have me at a – on the last 7 days for my blog but up for the 1 month and 3 month in nearly every category. I think with Alexa the whole day to day thing can drive you nuts, you really should focus more on 1 month and 3 month comparisons to weed out the flukes, stumbles and “short spikes” which can skew a week and make the reporting inaccurate. I have quite a ways to go to catch up with your popularity.
You gave interesting tips about how to improve, like internal link building to increase # of pageviews, and video posts to increase “time on site”. These are very good strategies, and I myself don’t do internal link building nearly as much. Do you use one of the wordpress plug-ins for internal link building or do all your own manually?
.-= Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..DragonBlogger Joins CMF Ads =-.
Twitter: BBRIAN017
Well John I’ve always been a fan of Alexa and to be frank they have always been dead on regarding to my traffic fluctuations. Overall I think it’s a great tool to analyze your website as you clearly proved in this post.
I loved how you provided all he resolution to the problem.
You can see where your traffic is coming from and how your website ranks in other countries. I think it’s a great resource and should be used.
Excellent post as always
.-= bbrian017´s last blog ..Being Productive When Your Blog Site is Down =-.
Twitter: ShotOfCoffee
I’m in a little competition with a certain female sports blogger for highest Alexa ranking, but it’s nothing I take seriously. Mainly because my Alexa ranking numbers have been getting really random lately, jumping all around, while my traffic has been steadily increasing.
.-= Mike @DailyShotOfCoffee´s last blog ..6 Reasons I Brew My Own Coffee… =-.
Twitter: 2009Taxes
I tend to think Google Page Rank = more traffic to your site. Although this assumption might be incorrect. Alexa Rank is a past view of the traffic and does produce any additional traffic as Alexa does not produce search results. IMO.
.-= Steve @ Tax Act 2009´s last blog ..Help Me In My Tax Preparation =-.
Alexa rank is one of the main tool to check sites performance , its impossible to tweak alexa or improve alexas rank by giving money like in case of google page rank LOL :laughat: but , even alexa is not accurate in terms of ranking , google analytics is the best i have ever seen , but it doesnt gice ranks like in alexa hmmmmmmm
.-= Ajinkya´s last blog ..Spell Words with flick Logo images =-.
Twitter: blogsterblogsire.com
I’ve put the Alexa widget on my blog so that I can gauge at a glance which way it’s tracking. Of the last month I’ve managed to get it down to 75000 odd and the only thing that I can attribute it to is that I’ve upped my post rate a bit.
I don’t think it’s that much a big deal unless it’s an accurate measurement of traffic, and I’m not sure it is.
.-= Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..Necessity The Mother Of Invention And How It Relates To Blogs =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Sire@WassupBlog, it would be so much nicer if Alexa would explain in some form how it comes to the figure it comes to.
Twitter: blogsterblogsire.com
@Extreme John, Yes it would wouldn’t it. At least then we would know for sure what had to be done to appease the guys down there.
My stats are starting to creep up and it shouldn’t because the traffic been going up so it should be moving the other way. I think I’m going to do the same thing I do with Google, I ain’t gonna give a crap no more.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..How Twitter Can Actually Earn You Some Cash =-.
Twitter: zxxxt
I find Alexa rank useful but the last couple of weeks has been so puzzling to me. Google Analytics and WP Stats says I’m improving my traffic but my Alexa rank actually lost some places. Weird
.-= ZXT´s last blog ..Free Google Wave Invites =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@ZXT, not so weird I have heard that a lot from bloggers.
Twitter: virtuosoblogger
I believe that alexa rankings is a good measure of traffic you get. Actually a lot of users stats using Alexa bar are used for the ranking. And these users are usually Influential online users. So they have a major impact. I use Alexa Rank to measure my site’s sucess
.-= gautam hans´s last blog ..Why i Like StumbleUpon =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@gautam hans, thank you for sharing your thoughts as always bro, it’s amazing how split the two sides are when it comes to Alexa ranking.
Alexa doesn’t matter one bit to me. Never checked my Alexa rankings.
.-= Anne @ b6s.net´s last blog ..Five Ways I Make Money from My Blogs and Sites =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Anne @ b6s.net, never ever? Why not?
Twitter: tycoonblogger
I think the people who do not like Alexa are the ones with shitty rankings, I bet you will not find anyone under 25k saying Alexa sucks. I for one think it is an important measure and I do track it and take steps to improve it as well. Good job…I am right behind you 35k and getting better each week!
.-= Tycoon Blogger @improve alexa ranking´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
I don’t even check Alexa rank unless I need to do some basic traffic monitoring for SEO/SEM campaigns.
I also like to check the competition every once and a while, but really Alexa is a waste of time.
.-= zach@Mid Mo Mortgage´s last blog ..Feb 4 – Senate to Vote on Job-Creation Legislation Next Week =-.
Alexa rank is like the free traffic analysis tool like google analytics. But feature is limited in this tool. Just this gives a reasonable amount of idea how your blog or site’s traffic is going . But it is good.
Alexa ranking is not accurate. I have blog with lower traffic but higher rank in Alexa. The other round on the other blog.
.-= Jayce´s last blog ..How to install Garmin Mobile XT for Windows Mobile Phone? =-.
Twitter: onesuite
At your pace John, I think theres a possibility you might hit 10k before the years end.
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..Cut Your Toll-Free Service Expenses =-.
I keep an eye on it occasionally, especially since taking over my new domain which had sat dormant for several months.
HotBlogTips was over 2mil on alexa a week ago today, I am sitting at 619k as I write this comment. That encourages me regardless of the naysayers.
I think that once inside the top 100k, the numbers become more and more accurate as you climb, especially inside the top 10k.
.-= Keith@ Hot Blog Tips´s last blog ..Where Are Your Readers? =-.
Alexa ranking is not 100% accurate. SEO and webmaster related content blogs and websites usually have higher Alexa ranking, because these people are more likely to have Alexa toolbar installed, while an average blogger doesn’t.
Anyhow, it’s still nice to have higher Alexa rank, especially if you want to get some ads on your blog.
.-= Marko´s last blog ..50 Beautiful Butterfly Pictures =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Marko, or even for a potential sale in the future.
Twitter: jaredplittle
Thanks John for this, Alexa rank is one of my focus this year I plan on doing chain reviews very similar to what you did in the up coming months. It seems they were very effective for you.
.-= Jared P Little@The Money Cult´s last blog ..January Monthly Wrapup =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Jared P Little@The Money Cult, you can def have some fun with it and it’s a great way of building a network.
Another Great Post My Dude :high:
.-= The Angry Anarchist´s last blog ..Worlds Biggest Pimple =-.
Alexa.com should put a disclaimer on its website warning people that their data is “For Amusement / Entertainment Use Only” as Alexa rankings CAN be easily manipulated.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Steve, they are changing up their game so the manipulation process isn’t like what it use to be.
I dont’t know whether alexa is important or not, but I use it everyday to check out my site status
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