Alexa.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and is a website which provides information on traffic levels for websites. The Alexa rank is measured according to the amount of users who’ve visited a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.
In this article, I’ll examine the importance of the Alexa Rank as it relates to site monetization while briefly discussing some of the weaknesses involved in using Alexa ranking as a reliable traffic measure for any website.
Lastly, I’ve also included an extensive list of twenty methods and strategies you can use to increase your Alexa Rank dramatically in the short and long run.
What is the Alexa Rank?
Put simply, the Alexa Rank is a ranking system which bases its ranking schema on the level of traffic each website receives from the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.
See Alexa’s definition of the Alexa Traffic Rank:
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis.
The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)
Why would you want to increase your Alexa rank?
Webmasters, advertisers and ad networks use your blog’s Alexa rank as a gauge to determine the worth of a link on your website. If you depend on link or site selling as a form of monetization you’ll definitely want to increase your Alexa rank, because it’ll increase your bargaining power when it comes to ad pricing.
ReviewMe, Text Link Ads and Sponsored Reviews are just three of the networks which base your ad selling strength on Alexa Ranks.
Problems with the Alexa Rank
Alexa ranking is heavily skewed towards websites which have a large webmaster/tech audience. This is because webmasters or web savvy audiences are much more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed than websites whose visitors are unaware of Alexa.
As such, many have indicated that Alexa is a vastly inaccurate method of measuring a website’s reach, traffic and potential. I don’t disagree.
Alexa is a silly way to measure web traffic but unfortunately, in an imperfect world Alexa is still heavily used by webmasters and ad networks when measuring the value of advertising on your website.
I understand the defects of Alexa’s ranking system and I’m not going to go into more detail about it here. What’s primarily important to me is that the Alexa Rank has become a central element in site monetization strategies.
I’m not concerned with the utility and value of Alexa but it’s perceived importance in the eyes of potential advertisers.
How do I get started with Alexa?
There are two easy ways to start using Alexa. If you are using Internet Explorer, visit this page and download the Alexa Toolbar. If you’re using Firefox, download the SearchStatus extension which displays the Alexa Rank, Google PageRank as well as other useful features.
I highly recommend that you use Firefox and SearchStatus instead of Alexa toolbar, which I find to be more bulky and less useful.
In this article, I’ll examine the importance of the Alexa Rank as it relates to site monetization while briefly discussing some of the weaknesses involved in using Alexa ranking as a reliable traffic measure for any website.
Lastly, I’ve also included an extensive list of twenty methods and strategies you can use to increase your Alexa Rank dramatically in the short and long run.
What is the Alexa Rank?
Put simply, the Alexa Rank is a ranking system which bases its ranking schema on the level of traffic each website receives from the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.
See Alexa’s definition of the Alexa Traffic Rank:
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis.
The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)
Why would you want to increase your Alexa rank?
Webmasters, advertisers and ad networks use your blog’s Alexa rank as a gauge to determine the worth of a link on your website. If you depend on link or site selling as a form of monetization you’ll definitely want to increase your Alexa rank, because it’ll increase your bargaining power when it comes to ad pricing.
ReviewMe, Text Link Ads and Sponsored Reviews are just three of the networks which base your ad selling strength on Alexa Ranks.
Problems with the Alexa Rank
Alexa ranking is heavily skewed towards websites which have a large webmaster/tech audience. This is because webmasters or web savvy audiences are much more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed than websites whose visitors are unaware of Alexa.
As such, many have indicated that Alexa is a vastly inaccurate method of measuring a website’s reach, traffic and potential. I don’t disagree.
Alexa is a silly way to measure web traffic but unfortunately, in an imperfect world Alexa is still heavily used by webmasters and ad networks when measuring the value of advertising on your website.
I understand the defects of Alexa’s ranking system and I’m not going to go into more detail about it here. What’s primarily important to me is that the Alexa Rank has become a central element in site monetization strategies.
I’m not concerned with the utility and value of Alexa but it’s perceived importance in the eyes of potential advertisers.
How do I get started with Alexa?
There are two easy ways to start using Alexa. If you are using Internet Explorer, visit this page and download the Alexa Toolbar. If you’re using Firefox, download the SearchStatus extension which displays the Alexa Rank, Google PageRank as well as other useful features.
I highly recommend that you use Firefox and SearchStatus instead of Alexa toolbar, which I find to be more bulky and less useful.
Can one actually game or manipulate the Alexa Ranking?
Some have adamantly stated that there are no proven ways to game Alexa, while others have claimed that auto-surfs and scripts do work to some degree.
I’m not going to take any sides because I can’t guarantee that auto-surfs or other artificial methods will have similar effects for every blog.
The easiest way to know to know if any of the tips mentioned below really work is to actually try them for yourselves and monitor the results.
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