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So you finally created your blog and spent hours setting it up and adding content. How can you tell how well you’re doing compared to the rest of the web? There are a handful of ways that are industry accepted, one of them being Alexa.
If you haven’t met her yet, oh you will; what a love affair you will have with her!
Alexa markets herself as a web information company and provides “Free web traffic, metrics, top sites lists, site demographics, hot urls, and more…”
Why do you need to care about all that?
One way to look at it is that the internet is popularity contest. If your Alexa Traffic Rank is 20,000,000, that means you are the 20 millionth most popular website on the planet! Alexa basically combines your average daily visitors and your average pageviews over the last three months. The website with the highest score will be have Alexa Rank: 1, which is currently held by Google (2 is Yahoo and 3 is Facebook, if you’re curious).
You might not care just yet. But even if you don’t use any of Alexa’s free offerings, you definitely want to know your traffic rank.
Find your Alexa traffic rank
Just go to Alexa and type in your URL. You’ll get a results page and without going into great detail, you’ll want to look at your Alexa Traffic Rank. If your blog is brand new, don’t be surprised if you’re in the high millions – if you show up at all.
Once people learn about Alexa’s traffic ranking, they immediately start entering every website they can think of off the top of their heads just to see their competition’s Alexa numbers.
To save yourself the trouble, just add an Alexa add-on for Firefox so you’ll see Alexa Rankings and much more right on your status bar. So while you’re web surfing, all you have to do is look down and see the Alexa Rank for that particular website. Like this:
Alexa toolbar shows Alexa traffic rank.
There are other ways to measure the relevance of your blog but what Alexa gives you is a good gauge of where you stand. It’s fun watching your blog move up the rankings and hopefully, Alexa will be a motivator for you to chip away at improving it.
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Gabe, Alexa can give a general indication of traffic, but I’ve found that it’s very inaccurate for my blogs. My hiking blog gets far more traffic than my writing blog, yet they have about the same Alexa rank. I’ve also read multiple posts on other blogs about Alexa’s inability to correctly measure traffic.
That said, I still find it a useful metric. I use the WebRank toolbar for Firefox to get Alexa rank, Compete rank, Quantcast rank, Google page rank, and a slew of other information.
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John, that’s exactly right: an inaccurate but useful measurement! I find it mostly useful for watching trends in traffic. Again, not always accurate, but still useful over time.
Also, I believe the accuracy increases with traffic. Very high traffic sites seem to be measured more accurately.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..7 Scenarios for Blogcasting which one is yours
It’s great that you’re using other measures as well. Using Alexa as one of your gauges can’t hurt. It gives us a ballpark of where our site falls relative to others.
I have read a lot of things about Alexa, that among other things being inaccurate and all. Thing is what is accurate? I don’t think that someone can actually claim this without at the very least having some minor “margin errors”. It is said that such error tends to diminish once you are in the 100K range. Also, I found out that apart from pageviews and daily visitors, one important factor that Alexa uses is “countries”. The more visitors you get from diverse countries the better. Just my two cents.
Either than that, it is a metric that many people care about, specially advertisers :)
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Your last point is perfect. Regardless of how much we love it or hate it, Alexa is being used.
Argh, my favorite rant topic!
Stop talking about Alexa already – I’ve said it before, I say it again, it’s a huge joke: Only tech geeks and some bloggers have the Alexa plugin/addon. In some niches they get no data. They say that they measure things “with other methods”, but that’s just crap.
My wife’s blog gets more visitors than mine and has Alexa ranking of 6 MILLION. Mine is at 50k-70k, depending on the day – why? because I visit my own site and I (and my audience) has all the addons/plugins, including Sparky, her audience doesn’t.
Alexa = Stupid, playable system. Forget it.
:rant over:
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Antti – people, advertisers, care about Alexa! Which means it’s important for that fact alone.
Everything you wrote is true. Except for the “forget it” part. =)
It’s easy to hate Alexa for not being able to accurately capture all data points. But as Dave said, because people, including advertisers, use it, it shouldn’t be dismissed entirely.
I just treat it as another metric that helps me understand how my sites’ are performing.
And I agree with Dave above. How much weight I give to my Alexa ranking is a different question: as far as I’m concerned just trvelling upwards is good. Actual numbers I’m not so concerned about.
(She says, but I’m almost breaking the 500,000 barrier! Whoo!)
Perfect. Being able to see progress is another great benefit Alexa provides. Even without comparing with other sites, you can still watch your own site climb the ranks.
I look at Alexa (and Page Rank, Google Analytics, WP Stats, and AW Stats) out of curiosity and for the same reasons Dave gives for stats importance, but that’s all they mean to me…or at least that’s what I tell myself.
I think the reason I don’t pay more attention is lack of faith in anything even CLOSE to accuracy.
For example, Alexa has me at 2.9 mil, another visitor here at about 675K, and WIAW at a bit over 61K…then Google seems to discount that by giving Dave a 4, me a 2, and doesn’t even know the other site, which is older than mine, has more regular postings, and gets more comments.
As for stats…neither of the three I occasionally visit seems to have a clue. Hell, I’ve even learned that if I can convince myself of a lie I can go to AW Stats to make me feel better or go to Google Analytics if I’m wanting to be drug back to earth from a high.
I know of one site with 20 million monthly hits, 6 million visits, and only beats Dave by two on Alexa, getting a 6.
Screw ‘em all. I do this for fun anyway.
Although some of your points are valid, you’re discounting their weight. For example, having more comments doesn’t necessarily equate to higher Alexa rank and has no value in PR at all.
However, since you do it only for fun, then this whole discussion is moot. :)
Alexa is like some dumb but funny or stupid TV show that everyone says they hate, but still secretly watch anyway.
In the game of winners/losers, admitting you watch the show (i.e., follow Alexa) => loser! Heh.
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Just wondering why you would use Alexa as opposed to something like Google analytics or some other stats plugin?
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Advertisers and other third parties don’t have access to my GA account.
Once my 3 month dropped below 50k, I started getting a lot of unsolicited advertising offers. Since I’ve stopped posting so much, my Alexa is around 60 now, and no more offers.
So, yeah, I’m willing to agree that Alexa is complete bullshit… except to people who have money to spend.
Compete numbers are just as screwy in my opinion. But screwy in a different way!
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I think they’re all bullshit and all are inaccurate. The only one to pay attention to, in my opinion, is Google Analytics, and that only because the world thinks Google hung the moon and believes whatever they say, thus being the most trusted source for advertising decisions.
I think Google is as inaccurate as the rest, but advertisers don’t.
I don’t care, really. I only do this for fun…(uh huh).
Liar.
OK…OK…A bit more than just fun…but not for money either. You know I’m in a one-sided competition with another blog…and if I catch up (or even close) a shitload of money will follow, but I do it because if figger if she can then I can too.
Honestly…the money would just be a bonus.
But as Dave stated, no one has access to your Google Analytics. Alexa, Google PR, Compete, etc… they’re all part of a popularity contest. If all of these “judges” don’t like your site, then neither will advertisers.
BTW, Google didn’t hang the moon but they did coordinate the last solar eclipse and orchestrated the high tides in July.
Perhaps the monster swell pounding the Northern California coast at the moment?
Surf. Is. Up!
You would use Alexa along with other tools, not by itself.
Somewhere around 4 months ago I completely stopped paying attention to my Alexa rank, it really never did anything too exciting anyway.
Needless to say 4 months later and I don’t miss it one bit, my traffic continues to grow.
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Is this program somehow made by an affiliate company of SEO quake coz their rank finder is nowhere near accurate?
Natalie, no. Partly, the reasons are technical. Partly, no measure is entirely accurate. The burden is on us when we analyze to correctly interpret the data we receive.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..The Horrible Terrible Sales Page Blog Post Engineering v 074 “William”
Whether we like it or not, Alexa rank does matter if only as a badge of honor for your website if it is among the top 5% of the internet.
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As a badge of honor? Bestowed by an anonymous computer run by an anonymous group of people who don’t even know who the hell we are beyond an IP address or domain name? Bestowed based on correctly spelling a keyword or remembering to leave stop words out of our post slugs? I don’t need that for validation.
I write good shit. Slowly more and more people are finding that good shit. I wish my comments reflected that, but I’ll settle (for now) for enjoying the ever increasing email my readers send.
If I ever find myself needing the “badge of honor” of a good Alexa score in order to give me self-esteem the solution will me paying better attention to my mental health, not kissing up to some computer robot that crawls my blog occasionally.
Alexa is an accepted authority. If it weren’t, this blog post would not have been written in the first place. Many people whose sites are among top 1% do tell the whole world about that fact and it does have an effect on advertisers. It’s a great point to highlight. You may refuse to acknowledge Alexa’s authority, question its algorithm for ranking but it will still remain an authority. You might not truly believe in its authority but the day your site is among top 1%, you wont mind highlighting that fact either. (And you shouldn’t, since the world’s perception counts) :D
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Even I, for better or worse, am swayed by someone’s Alexa ranking. There’s a pretty good chance that I won’t be doing link exchanges with a site with 2,000,000 Alexa Rank and PR0. Not because I’m a snob but because I prefer to partner with others who have similar numbers to my site.
I don’t brag about my Alexa rank but there’s no doubt that others judge me by it.
Well like most thing in life, Alexa is not 100% accurate but, by studying the Alexa rank of a web site you get an idea about it’s traffic.
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At first i didn’t believe and didn’t care about my Alexa ranking, especially, the widgets loads very slow.
But then since my blog got under 50K I found Alexa is great to measure downs and ups on the traffics.
What i don’t like is the keywords mostly searched are displayed :(
I hope that doesn’t give any hints LOL
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Kimi… I just want you to know… I’ve been scraping your search results from Alexa.
Heh.
LOL :P
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Alexa who? I stopped looking at Alexa rankings about a year ago. It absolutely drives me crazy. Good post though.
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I don’t believe Alexa is accurate. But, you need to use it if you want advertisements on your blog.
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I really don’t trust Alexa. It’s not accurate.
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Alexa is accurate. It just doesn’t measure – or provide the results – that people demand of it.
Instead, Alexa delivers the numbers it measures.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..The Horrible Terrible Sales Page Blog Post Engineering v 074 “William”
Very true. Alexa does what it’s supposed to do. A better argument is that Alexa isn’t comprehensive, but then again, that goes for any publically-viewable measuring stick.
Gabe,
Like it, will install it and check it out.
What’s the toolbar you have going just below showing the 16,500 inlinks? Is that part of the toolbar?
I just installed the toolbar after reading this and I’ve watched my new blog jump from over 1,000,000 to around 700,000 today. That’s nothing to brag about but it’s cool to see it jump 100,000 spots a day. That’ll probably stop real soon but I’m hoping to get in the top 50k.
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I know Alexa has flaws. But when I saw my new site moved from 21,000,000 to 14,000,000 million I did a happy dance. And then the music stopped. I seem to be stuck there!
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Robin, hang out here and on Gabe’s blog, you will get some traffic. It takes time. Think long term.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Having a content writing strategy for your blog
I’m sitting at 2.4M and 615k in the USA.
Gonna be a late night getting those up.
Seriously though, look at the list of top sites. Can you really shoot for anything like that?
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Sure you can…unless you think you can’t.
No link, not gravitar, noBODY, no nuttin’.
Nothing, coming from nothing…appropriate (and I say that affectionately).
Bob, that was probably a real person, but they were posted from a Hotmail account.
The writing reminded of me of those deluded, pseudo-scientific cranks who cannot pass peer review for publication, and resort to name calling and accusations about how the “game is rigged.”
BTW, I just got an email from Alexa advertising their new site audit tool. Haven’t checked it out yet, but I will soon.
Gawd, holy thread revival!
Dave…yer psychology is lettin’ you down. I knew he/she/it was real. I wouldn’t waste the sarcasm on a bot. By “noby”, I meant worth anything.
I won’t let comments like that stand. They get deleted as fast as I find them.
Also, the cool thing about deleting stupid anonymous comments is that the anonymous commenter has no recourse.
What are they going to do? Post another anonymous comment? I’ll delete it.
I suppose they could post a rant on their own blog… but what would they write? “My anonymous comments were deleted!!! Wah wah wah.” And would anyone who mattered read such writing? (No.)
Anotheer advantage…to be effective they would have to name the deleter…WIAW…thus driving up your Alexa…LOL.
I read somewhere that alexa calculates rank based on the users who have installed alexa tool bar in their browser. Is that true?
Thank You!
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The best way to learn about Alexa is to read the information on the Alexa web site. Very few people bother. Those guys are smart, and the information is good. Check it out.
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That’s absolutely true Singu. If a blog is in a niche that relates to website creation, internet marketing and such and such, the visitors are more likely to have Alexa toolbar installed so the Alexa ranking of that blog is much closer to the top than that of other bloggers in travel, beauty, baby etc niches. If you are outside these web related niches, you will need to have tens of thousands of visitors more than the internet marketing niche blog to be able to compete with them in Alexa ranking.
The exception to this rule are popular news sites, google, yahoo facebook etc who get millions of visitors daily.
Maky, this is opportunity to promote the Alexa toolbar into your niche.
I live around the corner from these guys, I should stop by their office and shake ‘em up a bit, get them to promote into other niches.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Black Hat SEO is Thriving
lol Dave, you know what I am planning? create a website in the website creation niche, compare its ranking + traffic against that of my food site and expose Alexa!
One thing is for sure: if getting to the top of alexa ranking in a few weeks is the goal of a webmaster, then the best thing is to create a site that will bring visitors with alexa toolbar installed, plain and simple.
PS. I hope you visited my website cos that will count as one more visitor with alexa toolbar. hehe
Do it! Do it! Do it!
And I did visit your site. Pretty awesome use of Notepad.
Folks let that get in the way. Let’s say that’s 100% true, that’s still a good enough sample size to see where a site ranks. In almost every case, any disparity is negligible.
One of the reasons why things on Alexa may look erratic or unreliable is that that the web is constantly changing. Everyone who has a web site wants it to be #1 on Google or at least first page. Like any other tool, I think Alexa would only serve as a limited indicator. Taking Alexa results in isolation would be useless. Have to use multiple tools and then draw your own conclusions. Oh and if you see some of the links Alexa relies on to rate your competitor higher than your site, you will realize that many of those incoming links are dead or the incoming domains are themselves dead. I don’t understand how Alexa does not drop those dead links? If I have a site showing say 500 incoming links and say 50 are page or domain not found, how is it that those don’t drop out?
Yes, Alexa results in isolation are useless.
I suspect they do drop dead links over time. But it’s a big internet and a site near the bottom of their rankings isn’t liable to get updated all that often.
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