OMG - What Happened To My Alexa Ranking??

[jaca]

Hi all,

I was making changes on my site tonight and went to check something on my site online and saw that my Alexa ranking tripled from the last time I opened the site - which was today. Has anyone found that their Alexa ranking has dropped dramatically today and does anyone know what is going on?

So I clicked on the Alexa toolbar INFO button and it says their ranking has changed. But gez a drop of over 1 million in less than a day - can anyone shed any light on this?!

Thanks in advance.

Jan

[ctabuk]

Jan, Alexa is not a serious SEO topic - it never has been -it does not affect your SERP - it only reports back on searches made by people with the Alexa toolbar and maybe all that has happened is that people have realised and dropped the toolbar. Follow suit.

[buddhu]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Jan, Alexa is not a serious SEO topic - it never has been -it does not affect your SERP - it only reports back on searches made by people with the Alexa toolbar and maybe all that has happened is that people have realised and dropped the toolbar. Follow suit.

Yep, what ctabuk said. Don't worry about it.

The Alexa rank is inherently spammable. It has never been a really reliable source of objective stats. I haven't so much as looked at their toolbar in years.

[OBR]

In response to your question, Alexa has launched a new ranking algorithm. Most sites with webmaster traffic will see their rankings decrease. See more info at Alexa ranking algorithm.

[incrediblehelp]

Yup new algo, same crappy sample.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Yup new algo, same crappy sample.

Particularly the latter.

[cfinlayson]

There's been quite a bit of talk around our office about Alexa, and being the only web guy, I kind of chuckle.

Alexa recently changed the way they do things to counter the complaint that they don't really rank websites, they only rate how many times people with their toolbar hit websites.

http://www.alexa.com/site/company/announcement

I don't know exactly when they made this change, primarily because I don't really pay attention to Alexa, except to explain to the people in my office why I don't pay attention to Alexa when that person comes to me in a tizzy excited that some competitor has a better ranking.

Whoopdi-doo.

[deepsand]

Per Alexa, "We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users."

Anyone want to guess as to what those "multiple sources" might be?

[terrecom]

While I have never given much credibility to Alexa, I do use it to see the trend of Alexa tool bar users who apparently view our b2b marketplace, Terrecom.com - The Definitive B2B Marketplace. Our rating (page views) a day or two ago was around 3,000,000, but when I checked it today it was almost 8,000,000, a drop of almost 5,000,000 places. This after some long term consistency. I checked some of our competitors sites and they too have dropped precipitously. Without knowing the nature and extent of the changes to their algorythyms it is very hard to interpret the drop. Also, given the fact that millions of new sites come on stream every month, it is also hard to know how much of the drop is simply due to more sites with more money (for marketing) coming online. It really is a matter of traffic, and the sites that can afford to aggressively market (seo, ppc, ppl, etc.) are the ones that will rise to the top of any search engine rankings. So much for the egalitarian nature of the internet as it once was. The rich get richer, just like in the "real world."

[jawn_tech]

I'd always wondered if most Alexa ratings were webmaster-generated figures. Not only self-generated, but the stats of webmasters' surfing habits with the toolbar installed.

Be that as it may (or was), I can count on one hand the number of times I've visited the Alexa site. Comparing Alexa scores though, I'd always found it odd how certain sites had better Alexa scores than other more well-known sites.

I don't know of anyone outside of webmaster circles who've even heard of Alexa.

[ctabuk]

There is actually only one positive aspect of Alexa - it will report on your site based on Anchor text and will show a positive In Bound Link based on relativity of topic.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by jawn_tech

I'd always wondered if most Alexa ratings were webmaster-generated figures. Not only self-generated, but the stats of webmasters' surfing habits with the toolbar installed.

Be that as it may (or was), I can count on one hand the number of times I've visited the Alexa site. Comparing Alexa scores though, I'd always found it odd how certain sites had better Alexa scores than other more well-known sites.

I don't know of anyone outside of webmaster circles who've even heard of Alexa.

Well, most certainly some portion of Alexa recorded traffic is self-induced; the only real question is how much.

As for which sites are and are not prominent on Alexa, it may be the case that those users who are most likely to install the Alexa toolbar possess certain demographic characteristics such that certain sites or types of sties are signinficantly more or less likely to be frequented by them than others. It has always been my opinion that the Alexa rankings were susceptible to such unavoidable bias.

[jaca]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I think I should just remove the toolbar and look at my actual stats before I panic again

Happy Weekend!

Jan

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by jaca

Thanks everyone for your comments. I think I should just remove the toolbar and look at my actual stats before I panic again

Happy Weekend!

Jan

Well, since having the toolbar installed will cause no harm, except, perhaps, to your mental health, there's no need to remove it.

Enjoy.

[qh4dotcom]

The same thing happened to my site...it went back to the Alexa rank it had several months ago...and the same thing happened with several sites I visit.

[sanver]

Alexa has always been public about the basis for their site rankings and related reportings. However the fact remains that Alexa remains the most acceptable "performance report" to the public who do not have access to visitors log of the website.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by sanver

Alexa has always been public about the basis for their site rankings and related reportings. However the fact remains that Alexa remains the most acceptable "performance report" to the public who do not have access to visitors log of the website.

What do you mean by "acceptable?"

And, given that Alexa data are clearly subject to an "observer effect," and therefore unavoidably biased, in what sense is theirs a "performance" report?

[jaca]

That's a good point. What is "acceptable". However, folks with an Alexa toolbar see this as the traffic ranking (preformance) of the site and rate your business from this - at least from my experience.