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Alexa, Close But No Cigar
If you only have one site that you can access the stats to, the recent Alexa change probably freaked you out. But I can tell you from running multiple sites, with stats on all of them that Alexa was wrong before. And guess what, Alexa is still wrong now.
In fact, if you advertise based on Alexa numbers, you are still shooting in the dark. All you have really done is given yourself a justification to throw away your money when you chose to.
It used to be, if you were marketing products in the internet marketing, SEO, web development and other tech based fields, Alexa number were pretty reliable. After all, most of the people in this fields know about the Alexa toolbar and use it. But once you moved away into sites that did not appeal to this crowd, forget the numbers. They only muddied the waters.
Now, who the hell knows how useful the numbers are. They are still off, but there isn’t even a niche that I have identified where they are "on". Lets take a look at some true stats and the resulting Alexa numbers, shall we. Each of these are last months stats from Google and they are pretty indicative of the average, except for the first, which is this blog. Subtract about 1800 visitors from that one. And that even makes the Alexa numbers even less accurate.
Alexa:130,410
Alexa:521,534
Alexa:124,780
Alexa:2,877,083
And I ask, what use is a number if it is not even partially accurate. Alexa, just shut up. I don’t want to hear your about your improvement. Your algorithm is idiotic. And there is no point to it. It’s like if I were trying to lose weight and the scale were set to random. Why even use it?
50 Responses to Alexa, Close But No Cigar
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Now that’s really funny, Stephan. The third one really tops them all, geez…
But does that tell us that, still, a ranking below (i.e. “worse than”) 100,000 lacks accuracy?
Anyway, I agree these differences are just too huge to use the word “accurate” together with Alexa.
~Marcus
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But it is amazing how many sites and ad prices use this as a benchmark. How much would advertising go for on number 2 that gets almost a quarter of a million page views a month, with a 33% bounce rate, and an average of 4 minutes per visit based on an Alexa number of more than 500,000. Before the update, it was around 700,000.
Wow. That’s really weird. I’m sure you saw my recent Alexa post at theNetFool.com, but my results actually made sense, yours just don’t! That’s pretty odd and I definitely understand now why there has been so much unrest after the recent update
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It has been like that all along. If you are using Alexa to determine a site’s traffic or value, there are some sleepers out there. We who stick to the tech/marketing side of the net will never know unless we search. I had the good luck to currently run an ecommerce site that gets 1000-1500 uniques a day in a big sleeper category. I woke up quick to the stupidity over Alexa.
In my opinion Alexa has never been close. And I agree, it still isn’t close. It can still be manipulated. The only reason I even spend any time at all with Alexa is because there are still people out there that think it is important. So, I have to work to keep my numbers low in case someone is swayed by the number.
I can tell you one industry where no one uses the Alexa toolbar and that is home and garden. Nada, no one, zilch. Nice post!
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Let Alexa read your post…. with all proofs to prove that it is a shit!
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My alexa stats (196000) got better after the change, but as it seems to be so unreliable when the stats can jump up to the millions all of a sudden, what´s the whole idea? I don´t get it.
Toolbars, toolbars. I refuse to use them. Everyone wants a piece of my real estate. Putting THEIR toolbars (Alexa, Google, whatever) is just advertising for THEM and does ME no good. Maybe if they gave me #1 SERP for my terms, I might reconsider.
Try to submit your link to more Blog directory’s the more links to your homepage makes your alexa ranking more stable.
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I could do that but that defeats the point of my post which is that the value that Alexa numbers have is a false value. Nothing substantial should be based on these numbers. I am not worried about the Alexa ranking of these sites. I don’t depend on the type of advertising that uses Alexa as a benchmark. I am just saying to those that do to be careful. These sites make money from visitors, plain and simple. Alexa numbers don’t change that. And I am very happy and lucky that my monetization methods don’t depend on them.
I find Alexa to be pretty useless.
From a advertiser standpoint the numbers are just too easy to manipulate.
From a publisher perspective you are going to have much more reliable numbers from some kind of plugin that tracks visitors.
Stephan Miller, Submitting to directories isnt just for alexa rank, its for other SE’s too.
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I wonder if you are looking at the 3 month average numbers, the 1 week average numbers or the past day one? If you are using the 3 month figure, is your Google Analytics set to 3 months as well?
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The Alexa numbers were 3 months. The Analytics were one month, but since I run the analytics on all these sites, I can tell you that that the numbers were not that much different for the other two months.
Alexa doesn’t have a clue.
Well, the whole thing about ranking is always confusing, and for those who gets the better ranking, they will said to have get the rank from accurate source and say thanks/blogging about it. If it didn’t meet our hope, then we will say they are the worst one. Very human I think
But all these sites are sites that I run. The Alexa number is supposed to indicate traffic rank. But I also have Google Analytics on all the sites. I know the true traffic rank from that. Alexa is not even close to guessing right.
Stephan,
I absolutely agree – Alexa not only inaccurate – it blows. About a month ago I was doing a webinar with live presentation for my customers and readers and I was able to show them that Alexa somehow managed to rank my blog higher than problogger.net.
Now, I’m quite flattered but I know better – he probably gets more traffic in a day than I do in a month and seeing that ranking made me laugh and I actually have it on video
There is not really any good outside measurement system out there, but I use them to my advantage when I must. The only good one I see is maybe adding Quantcast.
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alexa ranking is easy to hack…:D
try alexa booster and webproxy automatic
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Yea, the Alexa ranking is really useless anyway. They have Yahoo as the top site on the planet? really?? haha. That’s just ridiculous. I don’t even pay attention to what Alexa does because it’s just not worth looking at. I think it’s just for newbie SEOs.
Some people base their ad rates on it. I wish I had balls enough to do that knowing what I know about my own traffic. Or maybe I should sell my secret to Alexa rank, although I am not sure what it would be. If I am gaming the system it’s by accident. I do a lot of things to promote this blog and I am not quite sure what causes my rank to keep climbing.
Well yes alexa ranking is a not so correct, but atleast now I think it’s quite fine, as many people have got alexa sparkies, if not alexa toolbars, and more over I checked and matched my site’s stats, with those of alexa and the peaks shown in the graph are quite ok …..but updates are very slow, I mean if on sunday i saw a huge traffic rush to my website, then it gets updated on Alexa only by Wed/Thurs.
The numbers do work a bit in the same niche as a comparison, but once you cross over to another niche, you might as well throw the number out.
Well, its good if you want to stick on one niche. But some website content covers more than one niche, and getting a high rank in alexa can’t guaranteed a steady and quality traffic for your site
I have been telling people for years that Alexa Rankings were worthless, they only show if people are using their stupid toolbar.
I mean who really uses Alexa, no one.
Hi, Important details to note. I practiced to note the alexa ranking and check it periodically, but no progress shown. I like your comments “It’s like if I were trying to lose weight and the scale were set to random. Why even use it?” ….
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I never took my Alexa ranking seriously. I prefer to look at it as a comedy show, where I can have a good laugh.
As far as I am concerned, Alexa is nothing more than aesthetics making your site look important, but doesn’t really add value to the website at all.
Regards,
Daniel
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My alexa stats (196000) got better after the change, but as it seems to be so unreliable when the stats can jump up to the millions all of a sudden, what´s the whole idea?
Well comply alexa rating is a not therefrom correct, but atleast now I think it’s quite fine, as many people have got alexa sparkies, if not alexa toolbars, and more as I checked and matched my site’s stats, shadow those of alexa and the peaks shown in the graph are plenty set out …..but updates are very slow, I abominable if on sunday i saw a huge traffic rush to my website, wherefore honest gets updated on Alexa alone by Wed/Thurs.
I care portray you unrivaled attempt locus no apart uses the Alexa toolbar also that is familiar and garden. Nada, no one, blank. splendid post!
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Just surfed in, and have to say that his is a great post.
I have few blogs covering on various topics, on blog A is about webmaster’s topic (most of visitors use alexa) while the other (blog b,c,d,etc) is about daily or various topics (not much mommy/teenagers use alexa).
On blog b,c,d,etc i receive 10 – 15x more visitors compared to blog A. But the alexa on blog b,etc is lower 3x compared to blog a.
Almost two years later from the original post and the Alexa rating system is still not what I use as a benchmark for my websites.
Most of the people complaining about Alexa giving good ranking to sites with relatively less number of users. This is because Alexa algorithm mostly depends upon the number of visitors who have installed Alexa toolbar. A site with 500 visitor all have Alexa toolbar installed will get better ranking than the site with 2000 visitor without Alexa toolbar installed.
Whatever the issues with Alexa algorithm,the fact is that still Alexa is considered to be one of the most authentic way of measuring traffic of blogs/website and still most of the search engines give higher PR to those blogs/websites who have better Alexa ranking. So, better Alexa Ranking still matters much.
Never really put much stock in those rankings anyways, but it’s nice to know I’m not the only one. However it is a good overall indicator of your level of web presence.
i think alexa is poor working and it’s shown few users
How do backlinks help my site?
yes you are right, its absolutely useless
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Hello Stephan,
I totally agree with you. Alexa ranking don’t give correct statistics of any site.
Alexa measures actions of only those people who have installed their toolbar. Further their toolbar only support internet explorer and not latest browsers like Google Chrome.
Still I don’t understand why many people judge a site on basis of Alexa Ranking.
I don’t trust alexa anymore.
I also use Alexa Ranking .but sometime i feel is not accurate . If you want perfect detail of your website so use google analytic tool.It really helps you .
Yes Stephan, I have also heard that Alexa’s problem and observed for many times. Different times it give different state. It is now believable reading your article. Thanks
Hi, Stephen, thanks to your vary useful post. I am agree with you that Alexa ranking is not reliable because it’s result always fluctuate. Thanks again for a valuable information.
To be honest, I never checked alexa rank of my websites, because don’t see the reason why should I do this
Appreciate your spending some time to generate clear the terminlogy towards the beginners!
Wow , before reading your post on alexa rankings I believed the opposite. Thanks for enlightening me. It must be useful for something right ?
I actually thought Alexa rankings helped websites to rank higher on search engines.. but i suppose the amount of traffic a website gets doesn’t matter? As sites like facebook, ebay, youtube etc are high on the Alexa ranking, and this website is 24,151 on the Alexa chart which is very good. I think it must make some difference right??
Alexa might improve their system or not, am not looking for it, since Google Analytics works just fine for me