Seriously. I don’t get why people care so much about their Alexa ranks… and people start freaking out when they see that their rankings start to drop. A person once asked me, “Stanley, how much traffic do I need to break into the top 100,000 on Alexa?” And the answer is… I don’t know.
Here’s the thing. Over the past few months, I’ve had many sites break into the top 100,000 yet each of those sites had completely different amounts of traffic.
For example, recently with StanleyTang.com, it received over 12,000 unique visitors in a 24 hour period after being featured on the frontpage of AppleDaily, yet Alexa says it only has a ranking of 73,000. On the otherhand, emillionsblog.com received just 1,000 unique visitors that day (12 times less traffic) but according to “accurate Alexa” it had a ranking of 60,000. In fact, a few months ago, one of my niche sites cumulated over 1,700 unique visitors that particular day and it soared into the top 20,000 on Alexa.
So which one should I believe:
Unless you offer some sort of advertising service (in which case it looks “good” to potential advertisers) or you just simply want to brag about it to your internet marketing friends/customers (in which case you can simply purchase Alexa traffic bots from the DigitalPoint marketplace), I personally wouldn’t care too much about my Alexa ranks. The only “real” traffic stats I care about are my Google Analytics and AWStats.
What do you think of Alexa rankings?
Hi, I’m Stanley Tang – a 19 year old tech entrepreneur, author and student. Since 2006, I’ve been building internet businesses ranging from online magazines to social web applications. I also published a book called eMillions, which was a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com.
I’m inspired by technology, startups, design, innovation, philosophy and business. I love engaging in the creative process of building tech startups.
Right now, I’m pursing a Computer Science degree at Stanford University. Be sure to look around to check out what I’ve been up to lately.
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Thank you Stanley for the Information
You are always helping me learn know about
this confusing Internet World.
Off-line Advertising is so Cut and Dry.
Of course How I rank advertising is by my
Bottom Line…
NET PROFIT
ROI
Thanks Stanley. I don’t have the powerhouse traffic to my site that you do, but I too have had a hard time getting caught up in the Alexia traffic since it did not seem to be completely numbers based. And bottom line is, if you made the money you want and you only had 1000 visitors, who cares what Alexia says.
@Chuck thank you. Absolutely, it all really comes down to PROFIT
@Wayne exactly.
Alexa is not your free statcounter. This organisation does not give counts of your hits, it gives you an average of three monthly periods. Even if you are in the top 100k one needs to look at an Alexa ranking as a tendency over time and also include into the formula the great number of websites that appear daily on the Internet. (You may well be having an increasing unique visits and have a decreasing alexa ranking!) Similarly 20 years back to win the Olympic 100m, 10.4 seconds did it, Today you would hardly be qualified for those timings.
One more factor to consider is the timming it takes for Alexa to start considering a new website, similarly to Google they try to avoid the up and gone websites that Google may will consider as spammy Websites rightly or not.
@Robert Agree. definitely was waaaaaayyyy easier back in 2006 to break into the top 100,000 or even top 10,000. all it took was get a few of your friends to install the alexa toolbar and poof you’re at 50,000. do a bit of article marketing or ppc and you’ll be at 10,000. now, with the same amount of traffic, its more like 200,000
but you do have to take into the consideration that these rankings were all at similar times – in fact the first two were on the same day.
Interesting post. It’s all too easy to get hung up on rankings when what really counts is results
Remember …
Alexa rankings are NOT taken from ALL visitors to one’s site(s). It’s taking from ONLY those visitors that have the Alexa toolbar installed.
So, I’ve never really understood all the fuss even to this day.
But like you mentioned, Stanley … it’s more of a bragging rights tool and not much more else.
Personally, I have no use for the Alexa rankings.
If it “floats yer boat” then go for it! LOL
Have Fun!
Rick Wilson
welldone
To me they’re just numbers….much like Google Page ranking. What I am more interested to see is if a blog gets page one for certain keywords in Google.
CONGRATS on your book and traffic. I think your book is really good!!
Thanks I like the pointers, what I don’t understand why then Alexa beacme parameters to top dvertizers to evaluate your blog or site?
Well if it’s not Alexa Rankings, then what is it? How do you authoritatively determine who’s got the biggest yacht?
i like alexa but i like better if my keywords would be in the top 30 of google like when you type pc sales i wanna be listed at the top 30 of google search ^^
this is our site about 1 week old how long does google index keywords anyway
pctechph