Every once in a while, Cash Flow Sherpas goes a little off the beaten path and tackles subjects outside the realm of personal finance. Yes, we are a personal finance blog, but we also like to keep up to date on current trends in technology. Today, we want to tackle the topic of Alexa rankings.
To most people, Alexa rankings are like their credit score. They don’t really know how they are calculated but they place a high level of importance on them. Alexa is no different. Many people like to see how websites stack up to other sites. Most people think the ranking is based on traffic, but they don’t really know how it is calculated.
Here is the truth about Alexa:
Alexa rankings are based on visits from people who have the Alexa Toolbar installed. Simply put, Alexa rankings are measured by the web surfing habits of Alexa users (users that typically tend to be more technologically focused).
So how can sites improve their rankings? The most common ways include:
- Installing the Alexa Toolbar on your computer and visiting your site
- Adding the Alexa Widget to your site
- Encouraging friends and family to install the Alexa Toolbar on their computer and then visit your site
- Writing about Alexa on your company blog
- Post in Webmaster forums because Webmasters are likely to have the Alexa Toolbar installed
Notice that all these tips contain the word Alexa. You are either installing the Alexa Toolbar, adding an Alexa Widget, writing about Alexa, telling people to use Alexa, or finding people that use Alexa. To me, this whole ranking system seems a little rigged towards Alexa supporters.
Granted there are other tips out there to increase your ranking. You could:
- Write quality content on your blog
- Write guest articles for other people’s blogs
- Write articles for your site more frequently
But this leads me to ask, if visitors to your site don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed or visitor’s to sites you guest blog for don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed, how can your rank increase when Alexa ranking is all about the web surfing habits of people with the toolbar installed?
Can You Game The System?
Obviously there are ways to game the Alexa system. If you Google “increase your Alexa rank,” over 3 million results come back, some of which consist of software you can purchase to increase your rank. That’s right, you can pay to increase your Alexa ranking. You can’t tell me that does not constitute gaming the system.
My Opinion:
Alexa rankings are completely and utterly useless. The rankings clearly do not accurately measure site rankings based on all traffic to the site, so why do we place so much emphasis on a site’s Alexa ranking? Let’s face it, there are some great sites out there that are getting fantastic levels of traffic from loyal readers/visitors who do not have the Alexa Toolbar installed which is resulting in them having a low Alexa ranking. To me, this doesn’t seem fair. It misleads people into thinking that certain sites are not as good as others and causes advertisers to bypass sites that get tons of traffic from non-Alexa users.
A Decent Rebuttal?
Some people will argue that by installing the Alexa widget on your site, visits from non Alexa users will be recorded and used towards your Alexa rankings. Other people argue that the widget is useless and does nothing. Who really knows what side is right in this argument. We are trying to figure out the truth by seeing if installing the widget on Cash Flow Sherpas increases our rank at all. But the only thing that is clear right now is that Alexa rankings are based on the web surfing habits of Alexa users or (if the Alexa widget does anything) Alexa use on websites.
Nope, My Opinion Still Stands
Alexa, I welcome any additional rebuttals. My opinion of your system can be changed with a great rebuttal. But until I hear facts that 100% disprove the conclusions I have drawn from my research on your rankings, my verdict is this: Alexa should not be used to determine the value of a site or the traffic a site receives and someone needs to create a neutral, accurate, public way to rank websites.
What do you think about Alexa rankings? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comment section!
