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How Important is Alexa Ranking?
By Adriana Iordan (c) 2007

Alexa Ranking - A Web Site Monetization Strategy?

All businesses that employ online marketing, strive to improve
their conversion rate. Now, there are different ways of
attracting targeted traffic. Some try to achieve a good ranking
in the SERPs, while others are satisfied with heavier traffic.
Either way, everybody has the goal of achieving financial
success.

But, while scoring high with Google may seem to certain business
people the only way to make themselves known and thus reach
their goal, there are others that think that a good position in
the Alexa ranking system might benefit them just as well.

What is Alexa Ranking?

This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (http://www.alexa.com/)
(a subsidiary of amazon.com ) that basically audits and makes
public the frequency of visits to various Web sites. The
algorithm by which Alexa traffic ranking is calculated, is
simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded over a
period of three months from users that have the Alexa toolbar
installed.

This traffic is based on such parameters as reach and page
views. The reach refers to the number of Alexa users who visit a
particular site in one day. Page view, as the name indicates, is
the number of times a particular page (URL) is viewed by Alexa
users. Alexa.com makes it clear though that, if a particular
user visits the same URL multiple times on the same day, all
those visits will be counted as one.

The first step of the ranking process is calculating the reach
and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily
basis. Alexa ranking is obtained by performing the geometric
mean of reach and page views, averaged over a predefined period
of time (three months).

How Alexa Ranking Works

It's quite easy to get started. All you have to do is visit the
alexa.com site and download (and install) the Alexa toolbar.
This toolbar offers a search function, but it mainly displays the
rank (at a global level) of the visited site, as well as the
sites that have been visited by Web surfers that are linked in
some way to the site being visited.

The Alexa toolbar not only displays information, but it also
sends data to the central server. Thus, each time you visit a
Web page via a Web browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox)
that has the toolbar installed, information is sent to the
server indicating your IP and the page you are visiting. Such
data is gathered from all the Web users who have the Alexa
toolbar.

With Alexa, the smaller the numerical ranking, the better. Most
people say that if you manage to make it in the top 100,000, it
is a sign that your site enjoys quite heavy traffic.

Is Alexa Ranking Worth Anything?

Benefits

  * Alexa Traffic can be used as a competitive intelligence
    tool (http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/08/competitive-
    intelligence-analysis-why-what-how-to-choose.html), but you
    should take into consideration the fact that the audience
    sample size is fairly small. Just enter your competitor's
    site in the "Compare Sites" section and measure the results
    of your web marketing efforts in comparison with your
    competitors'.

  * As opposed to Google's PageRank, the lower your ranking
    number, the better.

  * It helps Webmasters and advertisers see the real marketing
    potential of your Web site. The better your Alexa rank, the
    higher they may be willing to bid to buy advertising space
    on your Web site.

  * Personal pages or blogs are also ranked in the same way as
    ordinary Web sites. They will even get a distinctive mark (*)

  * Because Alexa ranking helps you with information about your
    Web site, it is a good instrument for search engine
    optimization.


< http://www.avangate.com/images/articles/competitive-traffic.jpg >


Disadvantages

  * Not everybody has the Alexa toolbar installed, so there
    might be millions of Web sites that, even if they have a lot
    of traffic, will not be ranked (or not high enough) by Alexa.
    It is rather relative.

  * Many people say that it is inaccurate and that Alexa traffic
    can be greatly influenced (or "gamed", as some prefer to call
    it).

  * Subdomains are not ranked separately, and neither are
    subpages within a domain. The overall traffic is calculated
    for the top-level domain only.


Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

If you want to boost your Alexa traffic ranking, you just have
to follow some quite simple rules, such as:

  * Download and install the Alexa toolbar and then surf your
    own site.

  * Place the Alexa widget on your Web site. It will entice
    visitors to check it out and, you know, each click counts.

  * Write useful, quality content, mostly webmaster-related.
    Promote it on webmaster forums and on social networking
    sites. The idea is to get as many computer and Internet
    savvy people as possible to visit your site, since the
    probability that they will have the Alexa toolbar installed
    is high.

  * Write blogs and articles about Alexa. You will get links
    to your pages that will help improve your ranking.

  * Try to get your articles on such blog sites as digg.com,
    del.icio.us, or www.stumbleupon.com

  * Optimize your site (or relevant pages of it) for Alexa
    related keywords.

  * Tell your friends about the Alexa toolbar, have them
    download and install it on their computers, and then tell
    them to visit your site.

  * Use an Alexa redirect. This means placing
    http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect? in front of your Web
    site's URL. Alexa will then take into consideration clicks
    on redirected links even if the visitor does not have the
    Alexa toolbar.

  * Apparently, Asian people are huge fans of Alexa. Therefore,
    many people suggest posting in Asian social networking
    forums.

  * Whenever you post on webmaster forums, include your site's
    URL in your signature. It is very likely that most webmasters
    have the toolbar installed, and there's a great probability
    that they'll visit your site.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there are pros and cons to Alexa ranking. The
bottom line is that most people consider it valuable only for
direct advertising. Given the fact that Alexa ranking for a site
is calculated on the basis of how many visitors with the Alexa
toolbar installed have visited that particular site, the results
can be inaccurate.

Nevertheless, 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. As a Web site monetization strategy, we can safely say
that Alexa ranking might be the right solution.
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Adriana Iordan is a Web Marketing Specialist at Avangate B.V.
(http://www.avangate.com). She has in depth knowledge of internet
marketing services and website analysis applied to the software
industry and e-commerce development. Avangate is an eCommerce
platform for electronic software distribution incorporating an
easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional
marketing and sales tools.
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