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Alexa Rankings Screw The Creative Class
As an internet entrepreneur I am stuck using the mainstream methods to try and compare my site to other sites. In order to get advertisers, sponsors and or generate buzz I have to be able to explain how my site ranks… unfortunately Alexa.com is still one of the widely used measurement tools for this.
Alexa’s Extremely Biased Rankings
My biggest beef is that Alexa is often billed as an overall ranking for sites, but people don’t often understand who it is Alexa is counting traffic from and how that screws over the creative class of sites.
Who Loves Clunky Toolbars?
Alexa gathers usage ONLY from people with the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers.
“Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period.”
- Alexa FAQ
Most savvy internet users don’t want more space taken up in their browsers. Why would I install the Alexa toolbar just to see site rankings when I can install the SearchStatus FireFox Extension that not only shows me Alexa Rankings, but also Google PageRank & Compete Rankings… AND tucks it nicely into the bottom corner of my browser?
Mac & Firefox Users Not Counted
The Alexa Toolbar Only Works with Windows & IE
“Currently, Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer are the only platforms and browsers supported by Alexa Toolbar.”
- Alexa Install Alert
Mac & Firefox users are often grouped as early adopters & innovators so if that sounds like your site’s traffic, you can be sure that Alexa is pooching your ranking.
COLOURlovers Example
COLOURlovers.com is a creative community site built around color, design & making color palettes. The site was recently nominated as “Best Comunity Site of 2007 by the Webby Awards” so it is a pretty established site… but only %30 of the site users use IE on Windows. That means %70 of the traffic has no chance of being indexed in the Alexa ranking calculations.
How High Would the Ranking Be if Alexa Counted FF & Mac?
COLOURlovers is ranked only 16,189 on Alexa.com
*April Stats According to Google Analytics
A Better Google Solution
While it scares me a bit to think about how much information Google has stored in their database…They really are the most logical solution for accurately showing site rankings.
Google Analytics:
- Is already the industry standard for showing pageviews and unique visitors.
- Is a free service that any site can use and a large number of sites already do.
- Adding in information like PageRank, etc. could create a variety of comparisons.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
This is so true. I also run into the same issues with my sites as well. I’ve had a lot of people come back to me and say that they’ve used trafficestimate.com to check pageviews, but from my experiences that site is pretty off. And when it comes to Alexa, like you said, it discounts all Mac & Fox users — the creative minds of the Internet! Which is a shame. I hear a lot of great things about haveamint.com and may give their software a shot. But I think that, to a degree, people are starting to see the value of a sites “influence” over its traffic and pageviews — something that simply isn’t measurable by any software and is completely subjective. If you control a niche and you have quality people visiting your site, then the 1000 quality people you have coming to you site daily will always be better than the 10,000 random people you have visiting your site — it’s all about the quality of your content and the quality of your readers.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
David,
Mint stats are great for real time statistics. I have both Mint & Analytics on COLOURlovers.
I need analytics for advertising purposes, but the 4 hour update lag doesn’t give me a good sense of who is linking or using my site right now… that is where Mint comes in.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Can you track outgoing links with Mint?
I need to track the outgoing links that get the most clicks within a set amount of time (day/week/month).
Not sure if Google Analytics can do this either.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Travis.
Yeah you can and Mint has a pretty good developer base creating new and better widgets to plug in to your reporting page: Mint: Peppermill
May 29th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Alexa will always benefit the SEO /(other related) people. It is strange how it is seen as a maintsream tool for measuring site success and traffic levels.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:14 am
You are right. But - on the other hand side - the Alexa system is working good for blogs. My brother has a webcomic and five times the traffic I get, but his Alexa ranking is five times higher too.
So I see the flaws, but I’m not unhappy with it: ;-)
May 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Zep, I’m guessing it is working for your blogs because of the readership. Blogs that appeal to the techno-savvy crowd are the ones that get penalized on Alexa.
June 6th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Agreed, but Alexa still is the best guage for all sites. Until something is mandatory on all web design platforms, we aren’t going to have anything to guage best on, besides Alexa.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Interesting article. There’s always flap in the webcomics world about site ranking and how sites are ranked, so this is a fascinating and relevant read.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! mzxjpveocm
March 5th, 2009 at 1:50 am
wow, so alexa really suck! i am so much frustrated pushing my way to a higher alexa ranking, but to my surprise upon knowing this.. thanks for the info..