Alexa - does anyone really use it?

sjr4x4 · #1 (**permalink**) 10-12-09, 11:58 AM

Curious to hear peoples views on Alexa.

For anyone who doesn't know, Alexa is service owned by Amazon and is used to analyze trends and estimate website traffic rankings, awarding them an Alexa Rank depending on traffic, pageviews etc.

Number 1 being Google, and new websites ranking as 10 million etc.

They generate their statistics by a browser toolbar that people download, and this then silently records stats on each website you visit.

From a snapshot of this data, Alexa then extropolate this information to generate the Alexa Rankings.

Now its not overly scientific, as you need the tool bar to grab stats, and most people that worry about Alexa rankings I think are usually web devs and SEO companies, so this can slant readings. But it can be a useful indicator, and using your own analytics, and ranking as a benchmark, with a bit of commonsense, you can guestimate how accurate someones Alexa ranking is.

Our UK Business Directory is currently 72,453 (as of today). This has been round for many years and is firmly established, where as our recently launched US Directory is ranked at 234,057.

So if you have a half decent ranking, then this can be a good marketing gimmick, but do website visitors really care about Alexa rankings, or is it only people in the online industry that got worry about it?

Stavros · #2 (**permalink**) 11-12-09, 01:10 PM

When I first started in my journey of SEO feasting I took Alexa as gospel but as you rightly point out it they are only as voted by stats.

I personaly use websitegrader.com as my prefered tool of choice.

sjr4x4 · #3 (**permalink**) 11-12-09, 02:48 PM

websitegrader is ok, have used it a few times over the years, and it gives you a rough idea of how a sites doing, but as with all these tools take its results with a pinch of salt

Website Grader - SEO Tool - Report For www.mylocalservices.co.uk

Graded as 98.9% sounds wonderful

A. Domain info
Cant even ref "who is" info
No redirect - there certainly is!

C. Google Indexed pages - 113,000 pages indexed.
Ahem! Actually 1.2 million!!

H. No Yahoo Directory enty found
There certainly is!! Costs us $300 per year

Website Grader - SEO Tool - Report For www.lowigroup.co.uk

F. Inbound links - 189,000

if only!!

Stavros · #4 (**permalink**) 11-12-09, 03:39 PM

I am still learning yoda. but the force is strong

sjr4x4 · #5 (**permalink**) 11-12-09, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stavros

I am still learning yoda. but the force is strong

learn SEO you must... more business you will find... complete your training you need...

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