32 spot-on reader comments to “Alexa ranking - what’s it all about?”

1. Paul Enderson, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   You’re right that some advertisers use Alexa to gauge marketing spends, but I personally don’t put much weight in them… Some of my stats for you:

   Personal Blog. Live for 28 days. Decent traffic. Alexa = 417,449

   GadgetBloke. Live for 59 days. Barely any traffic. Alexa = 441,718.

   Main Portfolio. Live for more than 2 years. Loads of traffic. Alexa = 598,999.

   Britster Social Networking Project. Live for two months. More than 10,000 uniques a month. Alexa = 780,616.

   So… Work that out! If Alexa is even vaguely representative of genuine traffic and interest in a site - then why do my stats seem so wildly inaccurate?

   But, having said all that, I don’t have any intention at this time of monetizing any of my sites (standard banners on Britster) - so it’s not too much of a worry for me! :)

2. goldcoaster, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   qq.com, I have no idea who or what they are but it proves you don’t need to be US or UK to be big.

   BTW, I like the idea of being able to edit my comment.

3. felix, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   an alternative to alexa is http://www.quantcast.com. They have better data.

4. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 15th, 2007 said:
   Paul,

   Thanks for posting your stats comparison. It is a strange one to work out.

   goldcoaster,

   I wasn’t sure what that Asian site was either, so I looked QQ up on Wikipedia. It’s the most popular free instant messaging program in Asia, and the world’s third most popular IM service.

   It’s estimated to have over 160 million users in China, with about 9 million Chinese users online at any one time.

   Felix,

   Thanks for mentioning quantcast.com. I haven’t seen that one and will check it out.

5. inspirationbit, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   I’m not currently concerned about the Alexa ranking for my blog. I have enough Technorati numbers to “worry” about and work on. :-)

6. Chris Lodge, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   Paul: The reason behind your rankings is simply because Alexa will only record traffic to your site IF the visitor has either the Alexa Toolbar (IE) or Search Status extension (Firefox)installed, and maybe if you have the Alexa widget on your site, though this is not confirmed.

   Basically it depends on the type of visitor you have.

   As David says, if you’re not monetizing, you don’t need to worry: If you are, install one of the two Alexa tools mentioned above & encourage your visitors to do so too!

   Thanks for the link David :-)

7. Terinea Weblog, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   Until I found out how Alexa ranks your site I use to pay attention, now I don’t.

8. Mike, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   David - Thanks for the mention :)

   Paul - As Chris points out, it all depends on whether your user has the Alexa toolbar installed. Typically if your site is about technology or web related you’ll get a higher Alexa rank because your users are more likely to have the toolbar installed. The vast majority on non-techy users are probably unaware that Alexa exists, let alone have the toolbar.

9. Tara, on May 15th, 2007 said:

   Hi David

   Thanks for the mention

   I was reading about Alexa the other day, seems a bit crazy to me that a user must use certain browsers or have the tool bar to register, it just can’t be very accurate. From a designers point if you are trying to attract other designers - theres even less chance of getting a good ranking, IE is discontinued on the Mac, and a lot of Mac users use Safari.

10. Pinksy, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    I’m ranked 1,299,688 :(

11. The Thinking Blog, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    Thanks for the tips.. I never really bothered with Alexa because I don’t do TLA or reviews (yet).

12. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 15th, 2007 said:
    Chris, Mike, Tara, Ilker,

    You’re very welcome.

    I agree with you, Tara, that it can’t be very accurate, but as advertisers I work through count it towards how much money they pay I feel I should give it some thought.

    Nevermind Pinksy,

    I still think you’re great.

13. Brett Evans, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    http://www.compete.com is another good site to do some comparison on but if your site isnt ranked up there high you will not get hardly any traffic details

14. Pinksy, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    Aww, thanks!

15. Kate, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    Thanks a ton for the advice on Alexa. I recently stumbled upon some other Alexa information lately and I have to admit, I learned a lot. I still can’t get over how fluid the entire internet (especially SEO) is. Everytime I learn something, it changes.

    Anyhow, I just thought I would also let you know that I’m in the middle of this tagging game and since I enjoy your blog, I added you.

    I “tagged” you (hope you don’t mind).

    Feel free to ignore the game if you don’t want to participate and please accept my apologies.

    -Kate

16. Scot Smith, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    I think it’s silly how they get their results from a toolbar (which means Firefox users don’t count), so if your audience is mostly technically advanced, they’re liked to not get counted by Alexa; as they’re probably using Firefox or Opera or even a flavor of Linux.

    This is a big flaw and it sucks that places like PayPerPost and ReviewMe take this in to such great consideration.

17. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 15th, 2007 said:
    Cheers for the link, Brett.

    Kate,

    Never any need to apologise for a tag. I’ll check it out soon, and thanks for stopping by.

    Hey Scot,

    I can’t say what PayPerPost is like, but I do find it odd how much emphasis ReviewMe places on Alexa.

    After just one day’s surfing using a tool bar it’s clear that Google page rank and Alexa stats can be dramatically different i.e. a site that has a high PR can also have a relatively poor Alexa.

18. Mike, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    Scot - there’s a Firefox extension available for Alexa. It’s not officially supported but it does the job. SearchStatus Extension.

19. Sean, on May 15th, 2007 said:

    The Alexa ranking also gives you another thing to brag about….and who doesn’t like to brag? lol

20. Bret, on May 17th, 2007 said:

    Doesn’t Alexa require an IE add-on to collect its stats? And Mike mentioned above that there is one for FireFox as well. Call me crazy but a ranking system that relies on an installed plug-in is certainly only getting part of the actual stats for a site. How did Alexa become so powerful in this space? I must be missing something.

21. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 17th, 2007 said:
    Good question, Bret.

    I can’t answer it either.

22. Mike, on May 19th, 2007 said:

    I think it’s because the Alexa toolbar came pre-bundled with the old Netscape browser. I’ve been meddling with the internet since the mid/late 90’s and they’ve always been around although referred to pretty much exclusively by the webmaster community.

23. Andy Beard, on May 19th, 2007 said:

    I did a comparison of Alexa vs Compete vs Quantcast a few months ago. None of them are more accurate, it is all to do with data collection, and each has its flaws.

    Encourage the use of Search Status for Firefox, it will help your Alexa rating a huge amount. It is one of the best ways to spot nofollow links.

24. Markk, on May 20th, 2007 said:

    It’s correct to say all these ranking tools, including Google PR, can’t be 100% accurate. If you don’t instal anyone of Alexa widgets, they sorta ignore your blog unlike PR which rates your number of links but that still don’t tell the whole story.

    A lot of people are way off the mark when they frown on Alexa ranking or any such measuring device. The truth is it doesn’t matter. I still look at all those figures - up or down - because common sense tells you they are STILL indicative of where you’re standing. Does it matter that the figure has to be deadly accurate? I don’t think so, these are useful tools and they help to give you an idea. Yes, just an idea! The rest is up your own brains to decipher how to conquer the blogosphere!

25. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 22nd, 2007 said:
    Andy,

    Interesting how you state that the search status extension is one of the best ways to spot nofollow links. I installed an Alexa toolbar for Firefox that sits nicely in the lower right corner of the browser, showing the page rank, Alexa and Compete stats. I’m guessing you’re talking of another extension, perhaps one that shows links in pink as I’ve seen you discuss?

    Markk,

    Does it matter that the figure has to be deadly accurate? I don’t think so.

    I’d agree with that. They’re pointers, and useful ones, even if not exactly accurate.

26. Andy Beard, on May 22nd, 2007 said:

    You have the right toolbar, you just haven’t configured it correctly.

    Right click on the “Q” which is to the left of the Pagerank and select “Highlight Nofollow Links”

    There are lots of other useful things on that menu as well.

27. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 22nd, 2007 said:
    Ah, I see. Thanks for the pointer Andy. Much appreciated.
28. Mike, on May 22nd, 2007 said:

    I’d not noticed that before either. Thanks for the heads up, Andy.

29. emigre, on May 28th, 2007 said:

    I installed the Alexa widget on my site on April 13 with a ranking of 614,506. Today, May 28 it’s at 209,368. Is the Alexa widget directly responsible for moving my ranking up by 2 thirds in slightly over 30 days? It sure didn’t hurt.

30. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on May 28th, 2007 said:
    That’s a nice improvement there emigre. Good of you to share the figures.
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