How Accurate is Alexa?
One of the most popular metrics for deciding whether or not a website is getting real traffic is and is really popular is the Alexa ranking. The trouble is, that ranking isn’t the most accurate reflection of rankings available. In fact, it’s actually a very poor option to decide to whether or not a site is ranking well. Here’s why:
What is Alexa?
Let’s start with the obvious: what is Alexa? In essence, Alexa is an optional toolbar which people can install on their browsers to help them to decide which sites are the most popular ones on the Internet.
At the same time that it tells people which sites they may want to visit, it also allows people to have their surfing tracked and to leave reviews of sites they’ve visited. Every time someone visits your web site, it gets a hit in Alexa. Then, when enough people have visited your site, it gets to move up in the Alexa rankings.
As you may expect, the top sites on the Internet are also the top sites on Alexa. Google is ranked number 1, followed by Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo. Microsoft’ Live service rounds out the top five listings on the Alexa rankings.
Optional Toolbar
There are actually a number of reasons why Alexa isn’t the most accurate measure of a website’s popularity, though the most obvious one is the fact that Alexa is based on an optional toolbar. That toolbar must be manually installed and the owner of the computer in question must be willing to have their information tracked.
In essence, this means that your high Alexa ranking means that you are high in the rankings only amongst people who happen to have installed Alexa and who have chosen to have their browsing history tracked by the toolbar.
Purchase Hits for Alexa Rankings
Besides the obvious issue that your rankings will be based only on those who actively participate with Alexa, there is also the issue that your competitors (or you) can easily purchase hits for Alexa for just a few dollars. I saw an ad on Fiverr offering to let people buy hits in packages of about 10,000 or so for Alexa to build rankings.
So Is Alexa Useless?
No – I wouldn’t say Alexa is useless. It’s just not a very accurate measure of your site’s popularity amongst the Internet elite of the world. It is helpful to put up a high Alexa ranking because of the herd mentality issue – people like to visit sites they think are popular. So when you have a high Alexa ranking, they think your site is worth something.
Alexa is also an important metric when working with advertisers since it does provide some information on rankings of your site so that they can decide whether or not to advertise with you and how much to pay. Not to mention that it’s worthwhile to have a decent Alexa ranking if you want to sell your website.
Bottom Line
Alexa has its uses and its defenders. Just don’t assume that it’s the be all end all of deciding web popularity since it really does have some very serious shortcomings.
Well stated. Alexa only tracks those who visit a website and are using a browser with the toolbar installed and allowing tracking.
I agree about what you have said regarding Alexa rankings. To really be sure you have to also look at Alexa and a few other items.
Just for the record I happen to love Alexa, because you have to start somewhere and Alexa at least gives you an idea of what a sub-section of the Internet thinks about your site.
I also will us the traffic metrics from my Internet provider as well as Google analytics. That should give you a pretty good idea where your sites stands among others.
I remember years ago hearing a lot about Alexa. It doesn’t really seem to be as important or relevant anymore.
An excellent point — it’s most about bragging rights these days.
I disagree!!!
For a little while, just after I put my web site up, and before I began with any SEO, I was the only person visiting it, and my ranking in Alexa went up from well over 8M to where it is now at just over 800,000. I don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed, and my hits, are somehow, being counted by Alexa?
My Google analytics stats have showed traffic only from me up until recently, so how it is that my site is going up so dramatically in Alexa rankings if I’m the only visitor?
Must be a glitch of some kind. Could it be that Analytics didn’t see the hits?
Request links. Don’t be shy about asking your entire colleagues and acquaintances to connection to their sites. The worst they can have to say is no, and plenty of times they may say yes. Getting good links is very important for your search engine results, so that you can definitely utilize help of people that know you.
The problem is that many will ask for reciprocal links which is generally not such a great deal.
At one point, i was really worried about the rankings Alexa showed of my sites. Thanks for this post. Very helpful
Just surfed over here after checking our stats for the first time in 6 months on Alexa, and I had to laugh.
Where Alexa is showing us having dropped 3 MILLION places on their ‘most visited websites’ list, we’ve actually QUADRUPLED our visitors in just the last two months alone, and have around TEN times the number of visitors than when we last checked Alexa.
Alexa is absolutely useless. I now understand why I stopped checking it months ago 🙂
Thanks for the article!