When it comes to blogging or online internet domination in general, rankings do play some sort of part in the whole scheme of things. There is Google PageRank, Alexa Ranking, and many many other types of ranking systems. All of these systems calculate a variety of things, such as quality of content, popularity on Google, web traffic, but more importantly, the higher you are ranked, the more popular your site is.
When you start a blog or website, the more visitors you get, the more traction you get. It’s sort of a momentum thing, and these types of ranking, especially Alexa ranking will tell us somewhat where our website would fit in in the grand scheme of things.
For example: Google, is ranked #1. Amazon #2, Facebook #3. When you get high up there, it really all boils down to page views and visitors.
In order for Alexa Ranking to properly work, visitors to a website actually need to have the Alexa Ranking plugin installed as things will send some sort of signal back to Alexa that someone is visiting a website. However as mentioned before, there are other factors that play a part in where a site stands when it comes to Alexa’s ranking system.
What is Alexa Ranking?
The Alexa Ranking system was actually set up by alexa.com, which is a subsidiary of amazon.com. In essence, this ranking system shows site’s popularity relative to other websites ranking in their system.
What it boils down to, is that the Alexa analytical platform audits the amount of visits performed by users on websites, and then proceeds to make those results public in the form of a general ranking system relative to other sites. The Alexa traffic rankings system uses a simple algorithm that essentially records user traffic and behavior for those who have installed the Alexa toolbar (plugin).
A variety of pis taken into account when generating an Alexa Ranking, such as page views, user frequency amount, reach and more. Reach refers to the number of users who visit a certain website in one day. A page view is the number of times users view a certain page. User frequency keeps in mind that one unique and specific user visiting the same website multiple times over and over again within one day, will actually be counted only as one visit, otherwise it would be very easy to manipulate the Alexa Ranking results..
How the Alexa Toolbar works?
The Alexa ranking system uses the data that has been provided by users who have installed the toolbar while having them visit websites and browse the web. To get started as a toolbar user, you need to download and install the Alexa toolbar. Once installed, you’ll notice the Alexa Rank icon displayed either top left or top right in your browser. The toolbar will then send traffic data to a central server that in turn then uses that data to rank websites. Your IP address and URL yare also recorded while visiting websites.
The more users who have a toolbar installed visit your website, the more accurate your site’s ranking. However, Alexa ranking may be somewhat dubious if you’re among the lower rankied site. More visitors and thus more data helps secure more accurate readings. If you are among the top 100,000 ranking sites in the Alexa ranking system, you can feel pretty confident about the accuracy of your reading. Websites with a high Alexa rank will have more visitors and higher sales conversions.
Could You Manipulate The Alexa Ranking System?
The short answer is, yes.
You could theoretically manipulate your Alexa rank by creating a JavaScript function that would loop through an array of web page addresses from your website. The way that it would simulate multiple visits from users who have the toolbar and thus creating the effect of a popular website, is to get each web address to open in a separate window. Then, you would have the function loop back to the beginning once it reaches the end. This is how people have manipulated their Alexa Rank without actually generating more traffic.
However, in the long run, this is not a good way to increase your site’s value as just increasing your alexa ranking is not enough to reap serious benefits.
Does The Alexa Ranking System Really Matter?
Some people have mixed feelings about the value of Alexa Ranking in the world of SEO. Below we’ve broken down some of the pro and cons when it comes to the Alexa Ranking system.
PROS:
- Alexa rankings are actually used by bloggers and website owners in their benefit in order to make more money from advertisers. The higher your website’s Alexa rank, the more valuable your website and thus the more traffic you have, thu the more you can charge for advertising space on your website.
- You can easily find out the rough estimation of the traffic and other data in regard to your competition. Alexa is a pretty effective analytical tool that can help you gain knowledge and information about your competitors that would allow you to have a head start on them.
- With the information provided by Alexa, you can get analytical insights into the performance of your website.
CONS:
- Alexa only takes into account data received from users who have the Alexa Ranking toolbar installed. Not every web visitor has the toolbar installed, so the results may not be precise. There are millions of websites that may never receive a good rank despite having a lot of traffic.
- As I’ve previously mentioned, the Alexa Ranking system can be manipulated.
- Alexa doesn’t necessarily separately rank subdomains and subpages within a domain.
How to Improve Your Alexa Rank?
- Add meta tags to your site on the Alexa tool so that it can be verified as a property of the Alexa account.
- Add the Alexa widget to your website or blog to get more regular visitors and receive more accurate results.
- Update your site with original and high-quality content.
- Try to get visitors and friends to review your site on Alexa.
- Promote your articles on popular social networking sites that are frequented by your target audience.
- Most bloggers have the Alexa toolbar installed, so try focusing on getting more traffic from your specialized niche.
- You can also leverage the tactic of subdividing your post into multiple pages, which is commonly done by Forbes and Search Engine Journal, to increase page views.
- Another tactic to improve page views is to move any download buttons to the next page.
Really, it all boils down to having the highest engagement on as many pages as possible by people who have the Alexa Ranking toolbar installed.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions, and I’ll be happy to answer them for you!