Understanding Your Alexa Ranking
By Bryan Clark on Aug 1, 2007 in Uncategorized
Alexa is a free tool offered at Alexa.Com. This tool allows you to see how your site compares to other websites on the net. Alexa is essentially a service that ranks all websites in numerical order based on reach, and page views. Lets break it down.
Reach
Reach is the total percentage of people that come in contact with your website. It is a ridiculously small number that is based on your traffic and overall internet traffic. For example Myspace has a reach of around 5%. This means that 5% of all internet traffic takes place on Myspace.
Myspace is ranked “6″ on Alexa, so don’t get discouraged by that number. My reach is a mere… 0.000315%
This means that 0.000315% of all internet traffic takes place on One Man’s Goal.
Page Views
Page views are simply the number of readers averaged with the total number of pages on your page that are viewed. For example, 10 readers view 30 pages. This would give you an average of 3 pages viewed per person. Alexa takes this into account when figuring your overall site popularity. So make sure people are viewing more than one page at a time.
Alexa Rank
My Alexa rank just shot up from the mid-500k’s to 381,218. This means that I am the 381,218th most famous site on the internet! Woo Hoo! I rock! I’m an Alexa superstar!!! Or maybe I will be eventually.
But what is respectable? Most bloggers consider breaking the top 200k to be a respectable number. My blog is new, and I should break into the 200k range this month.
My Alexa Ranking
Popularity: 100% [?]
31 Comment(s)
By Terence Chang on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Bryan:
I can see you that your Alexa traffic ranking increase very quick. Keep up the good works.
Just remember that Alexa Traffic ranking doesn’t mean everything. Good content will bring all us back.
What happened to your new theme?
By Bryan on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Terence - It’s in the works. My friend Ben has some coding work to do to it. But he has already created a beautiful banner, and the site will look fantastic when he’s done. He says it should be ready no later than Friday.
By SEL on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
alexa ranking is very much useful to your blog’s price. TLA and REviewMe consider alexa as one of the basis in pricing your blog’s links
By Bob on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
How is the Alexa ranking determined? Isn’t it only impacted by people who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser? Or am I totally smokin’ crack on that one?
By Matt Savage on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
I’ve wondered what the reach meant. You had a very good explanation of it.
I’m also curious as to how the Alexa toolbar fits into all of this.
By Contamination on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
I’m keen to see advice on how to improve your Alexia ranking. (hint for future post)
By Webd360 on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Alexa rating is an important stat especially for many advertising systems, but it doesn’t accurately give the percentages and rankings because it only tracks people who visit sites that have the Alexa tool bar installed. It is still a good achievement, good luck on cracking the top 200k and eventually the top 100k.
On a side note, I am looking forward to seeing the new theme that Terence Chang was talking about.
By Sly from Slyvisions.com on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Nice to see your ranking improve that quickly! When I bought my domain http://slyvisions.com on the first week of June last month, my Alexa was over 2,000,000. Now it’s only 276,286 (as of this date)! Hopefully I’ll get under 100,000 in less than a month. Can’t wait till I get there.
Sly from Slyisions.com
By Jason on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the info, Bryan. I’ve been using Alexa for a long time, but I guess I never really thought of all the details. My biggest site is at 299,000.
I’m thinking it gets tougher to get around 200,000 because the sites may actually be getting 5 to 10x as much traffic as you. I’m having trouble trying to find an example, but problogger.net has a 2,000 traffic rank and I’ve heard it gets sometimes 30,000 hits per hour.
By Terence Chang on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
I actually wrote a comment to a post that disappear just 3 minutes after I left the comment. I actually saw the new banner. That looks …. very good!
Crank your Alexa Traffic ranking to the top 200K is not hard at all. I just did. However, to get into 100K is tough.
Without the static traffic and constant growth, your ranking may just drop back to 200K+.
Keep up! I am watching you. Bro!
By Bryan on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the support guys. I know it will be tough, but that’s one of my many goals. I want to break the top 100k within 6 months.
We’ll see.
By Linda on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Supposedly my Alexa ranking is currently 358,083 which I guess is respectable but I still don’t understand all this stuff. I only have the Alexa ranking because I have applied to do Pay Per Post but haven’t started doing it yet despite being approved. I guess because I didn’t start my blog to make money, the Alexa ranking doesn’t really matter but it’s still interesting to know what it means.
Good luck breaking into the top 200K - I’m sure you’ll be able to do it soon!
By doris on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Any quick tips to lower our alexa rankings?
By Bryan on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Thousands!!! Where should I start?
By Sly from Slyvisions.com on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply
Doris, the Alexa ranking is basically a traffic ranking. So if you want to improve yours, the best way to do it is by getting visitors to your site! It’s easier said than done though so you need to work for it.
By Michael on Aug 2, 2007 | Reply
I hate Alexa and I almost wish that Firefox and Internet Explorer would come with some time of Alexa-like ranking system built in, of course they would have to ask you if you wanted it turned on before it was but at least then we would have a much better view of what web pages are viewed the most.
With Alexa all you see are the page views by people who know that Alexa even exists and who decide to use it. That to me is just ridiculous.
By Contamination on Aug 2, 2007 | Reply
Where should you start? If I knew, I’d be writing about it instead of asking you.
By Average Joe Blogger on Aug 2, 2007 | Reply
Good luck on cracking the top 200K. I’m still a long way from it but hopefully will get there soon.
By steve on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
i guess i’m not doing too bad then….
current rank 169,539
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=cymru66.com
By Bryan on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
Average Joe - Thanks!
steve - You’re doing great!
By Peggy Knowles on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
I really want to increase my scores. Your blog interested me, and I’m going to go to the website and see what I need to know and do. Peggy
By Bryan on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
Peggy - I’m glad! Check back often, hopefully I can give you some more tidbits! Feel free to post your website next time so I can take a look…
By rich on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
what do you guys think about those SEO people? is that a good way for bringing in more traffic?
By Bryan on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
rich - Absolutely not. While I’ve never tried one, so I can’t speak from personal experience, I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories. Most SEO services promise services they can’t possibly deliver. And if they can, they are doing it by “blackhat marketing”, which will get you banned on Google.
By A.J. - IAmFacingMillions.com on Aug 4, 2007 | Reply
There are some inherent flaws in Alexa rankings that are important to point out. Don’t get me wrong, it still gives you a guage, but it is severely flawed.
First, it only samples from people who have the tool installed. Well guess what audience is most likely to install the tool bar? Webmasters who want to see their rank and the rank of competing sites. So it’s heavily skewed towards webmasters.
There are some pretty detailed analysis out there which offers comparisons and supporting information for that.
That said, it still gives you a compas, just know it can be a little off (more than a little sometimes).
By cooliojones on Aug 6, 2007 | Reply
Good post. I haven’t seen many bloggers explain it like you have. You’ll get into the top 200k within the next month, I’m sure of it.
By Bryan on Aug 7, 2007 | Reply
aj - It’s a flawed system. But so is Google PR and so is life. We have to play the cards we’re dealt.
coolio - Thanks! It never gets old seeing the name “cooliojones” show up on the admin screen!
By Rani Dababneh on Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
nice
!!
check out my achievement
at:
6 Digits Alexa Traffic Ranking (Below 1 Million in less than 2 months)
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By Jeff Kumasamy on Apr 5, 2008 | Reply
Great article on Alexa,
I currently is doing a project on my businss that are sending more traffic to my site. Currently my site is under 120000. I am sure will hit below 100000 soon!
By Resell Rights on Apr 5, 2008 | Reply
To me actually, I will not focus on alexa ranking too much because it can only track those who had the alexa bar install. So it is usually useful for those in the internet marketing business niche.
Just my 2 cents worth.