Debunking Popular Alexa Myths

alexa

Used by everyone from advertisers, trend spotters, webmasters, or even just curious individuals - Alexa is a resource where anyone can look up any website’s traffic patterns and make comparisons.  A good Alexa ranking is highly valued by many advertisers, and it is no wonder why many bloggers and webmasters try their very best to improve their Alexa rankings.

Here are 2 very popular ‘methods’ of increasing Alexa rank which I am bringing into question.

These are cited by many sites - even reputable ones as being quick fixes for Alexa:

  1. Installing a widget which displays Alexa rank in your sidebar
  2. Having a link to Alexa which redirects to your site

Let me emphasize this - They don’t work

Here are 3 pieces of evidence why:

1. Alexa official site only says that data gathered from toolbars and plugins matter

alexa2

“Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day.

Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview. The site with the highest combination of users and pageviews is ranked #1″ - Alexa Help

The official Alexa site clearly states that the data comes from toolbars.  Also mentioned are Firefox plugins which work.

There is no mention of any other method of data collection in the Alexa official site.  Even the Alexa widget download page is deafeningly silent about any impact to Alexa ranking.

2. Projections will be skewed if the two methods in question are used

Alexa projects the sampled data based on a set of users who have the toolbar installed in an effort to represent Internet usage patterns.   

However, one thing to remember when looking at Alexa data, is that it captures ongoing Internet usage patterns from a pool of users.  This has several implications:

  1. It is biased towards certain user-groups more likely to use the Alexa toolbar ( Alexa admits this). 
  2. Whatever user-groups Alexa misses - it consistently misses, and whatever it covers well - it consistently covers well.  This is a very, very, very important point.  Bias towards user-groups do not swing wildly back and forth over time because Alexa is tracking more or less the same set of users over time. 
  3. Allowing the two methods in question to count in Alexa rankings would completely spoil any meaningful comparisons between sites.  Alexa data is constantly thrown into question.  If Alexa implemented the two methods in question - you might as well throw the data out the window.

3. Alexa’s product manager says they don’t work

graph

Although the two methods in question are mentioned in many places, Alexa for the most part is strangely silent about combating these myths.  In my research I have only come up with a single instance where someone from Alexa has categorically denied the two methods in question.

In April 2007, Matt608, a young blogger from England blogged about an Alexa experiment he had done, in which he concluded that redirecting links actually helped Alexa ranking.

A day later, a comment surfaced:

“Matt, don’t delude yourself or your readers. The redirect doesn’t do anything to your rank. The rank is based on one thing only: logs from toolbar usage. I should know, I am the product manager at Alexa.
Why did your rank improve? Your article prompted a lot of people with toolbars to visit your site. It is that simple.  Don’t use our redirect. It causes load on our machines for no purpose whatsoever” - Geoffrey Mack

A quick look at Geoffrey’s blogger profile confirms his identity.  He is also an author for awis.blogspot.com - Alexa’s official product blog.

Why is only one obscure comment in a blog, and not an active effort to combat these myths by Alexa?

My personal opinion is that these myths actually result in more exposure for Alexa, so while they don’t promote these methods, they don’t actively fight it also.

Bottomline:

Cheap tricks don’t work.  Focus on good content, and good design and good Alexa ranking will come your way.

[tags]alexa, traffic, alexa rankings [/tags]

What are your opinions on Alexa?  Do you make a conscious effort to improve it?  Tell us in the comments!

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    • 26 Responses to 'Debunking Popular Alexa Myths'

    TrackBack to 'Debunking Popular Alexa Myths'.

    1. BeachBum said,

      on August 11th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

      I agree that trying to trick Alexa, Search Engines, etc is not worth the trouble. In the end working hard and generating natural traffic will pay off int he end.

      BeachBum

    2. hongkiat said,

      on August 11th, 2007 at 8:15 pm

      Nick work, James.

    3. Alexa Myths - A Self Case Study said,

      on August 11th, 2007 at 9:20 pm

      [...] interesting analysis done by James on Debunking Alexa Myths Is sure an interesting read. Recently Alexa did change something in the algorithm which I had been [...]

    4. Ashish Mohta said,

      on August 11th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

      Check the post where I just linked you. Sure will be interesting to many readers of yours

    5. Maki said,

      on August 11th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

      If you read my article clearly you would have understood the methods listed were results of experiments of webmasters on their own websites. They were not listed as ‘quick fixes’ that absolutely work to improve your rank.

      In any case, my article clearly stated that the emphasis should instead be on developing and retaining visitors to your site.

      Thought I’ll like to make that clear just in case anyone has any misconceptions about my thoughts on this topic.

    6. Ashish Mohta said,

      on August 11th, 2007 at 9:45 pm

      @Maki: I would agree what you said on your post was right and could have motivated many readers to install the Alexa tool bar, but the adding a script doe’s not work for sure. I made a post which you can check out where I have analyzed my traffic to give a view

    7. James Yeang said,

      on August 12th, 2007 at 12:14 am

      @Maki: Thanks for the feedback, I know DoshDosh is a quality site which clearly knows the value of good content over Alexa gaming. I just thought I’d clear up two of the methods which were listed in the “20 quick ways to increase your Alexa rank”.

    8. Behold the Expertise of the ProBlogger Community - 95 Reader Tips said,

      on August 13th, 2007 at 7:03 am

      [...] Debunking Popular Alexa Myths by James Yeang [...]

    9. said,

      on August 13th, 2007 at 9:52 am

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    10. Debunking Popular Alexa Myths said,

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    11. JoLynn Braley said,

      on August 13th, 2007 at 9:27 pm

      Hi, first I’d like to say that I like your blog theme….and I don’t say that very often! :)

      Re: Alexa, I have a widget on my blog, which I put up after reading another post recommending it. That’s ok if it doesn’t help my rank, because I like to see the # go down. :)

      I also read about the recommendation to redirect your blog traffic through Alexa, but that just didn’t sound right to me…now I’m glad that I didn’t spend my time on that!

      I do use the Firefox plugin, I haven’t installed the IE Alexa toolbar yet.

      When it comes down to it, content rules most of what makes your blog successful, whether that’s your Alexa rank or Google rank. ;) Like you said, focus on your content, and good design!

    12. Michael from Pro Blog Design said,

      on August 15th, 2007 at 5:05 am

      If it weren’t for Text-Link-Ads using the Alexa stats, I doubt I would look at Alexa at all. Statistics are fantastic for improving your blog, but knowing that you position 234,413 out of a few million is just an ego boost… How does it actually help you with the blog?

    13. James Yeang said,

      on August 15th, 2007 at 7:57 am

      @JoLynn: Thanks glad it helped :)
      @Michael from Pro Blog Design: Whether any of us think it matters or not, it matters to advertisers. I will be doing a post soon about effective Alexa analysis soon, so hope you will be able to gain something from that later.

    14. leslie said,

      on August 15th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

      Good tips on Alexa ranking. It’s all about quality content. PERIOD.

    15. keeyit said,

      on August 16th, 2007 at 9:52 am

      Concentrate on building a quality blog… =)

    16. Kaloyan said,

      on August 20th, 2007 at 4:57 am

      A better option is to make the Alexa redirecting JavaScript-powered: in this way
      the HTML will not be modified, and the redirects will still work. I’ve applied
      this technique to a new plugin called Better “Alexa Redirect” WordPress
      plugin      . If you are interested about it, visit this URL to learn more
      about it:

      http://kaloyan.info/blog/better-alexa-redirect-plugin/

      or visit this page to download it:

      http://wp-alexa-redirect.googlecode.com/

    17. James Yeang said,

      on August 20th, 2007 at 8:01 am

      @Kaloyan - the point isn’t so much the HTML - it’s that the fact that Alexa redirection does not work

    18. Blogging Articles said,

      on August 22nd, 2007 at 7:09 am

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    19. Alexa Data is Golden Poo said,

      on August 29th, 2007 at 10:35 am

      [...] easily manipulated (perhaps not as easily as some [...]

    20. Alexa Redirect is Broken | Notes from Phazm said,

      on January 13th, 2008 at 12:14 am

      [...] google for “Alexa redirect” brings up over 50,000 results, some of them promote the Alexa redirect, others say it is a [...]

    21. Vlad - iStudioWeb. said,

      on January 13th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

      Thanks for commenting on my blog on this topic. Apparently it did work before, since I had the stats that clearly showed some difference (in the post: http://www.istudioweb.com/more-fun-with-alexa-and-stats-2008-01-10/)

    22. James Yeang said,

      on January 13th, 2008 at 7:27 pm

      @Vlad: Your post looked at Alexa and webstat referrals from Alexa - not your Alexa ranking… 2 different things

    23. Vlad - iStudioWeb said,

      on January 14th, 2008 at 2:18 am

      @James: right. The problem was that Alexa didn’t even touch my sites, that’s all :)

    24. WebUrs said,

      on February 16th, 2008 at 11:53 pm

      This is interesting material I just got across today. One problem is that Alexa works if you have their toolbar. Unfortunately, corporate users cannot install it on their machines at work. Hence, how and if they reach your site cannot be tracked by Alexa. this is discussed here with some nice links:

      http://commetrics.com/?p=45

      usage varies enormously and Alexa.com may not be right

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