Don’t expect to be particularly illuminated if a search result for Alexa page rank brought you here. I simply wanted to make an observation.
From the Alexa site: “Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users and data collected from other, diverse sources over a rolling three-month period. A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews.”
I read a couple of things more than a year ago which made me think the Alexa ranking might be semi-important, especially for a commercial website:
1) That it contributes to a site’s SEO (search engine optimisation) and therefore assists Google rankings.
2) It can influence some advertisers.
None of this matters, of course, for a private hobby blogger. But a goal-driven webmaster will want to see the Alexa rank go in a positive direction along with unique visitor numbers and Google page rank.
One tip I read was simply to install the Alexa toolbar. Visit your own site and the ranking will improve.
I saw the Alexa score for this site reduce from about a million to 250,000 after doing that. I normally have a web browser open at home and work, so it’s not hard to keep a tab open on my own site.
So does Alexa measure anything more than your own hits on a site and those of a few other like-minded people?
I think it does.
The Border Watch site has only been officially live for a couple of months. It’s receiving about 550 daily unique visitors compared with 275 here.
Despite the short timeframe, the Alexa ranking of The Border Watch site has dropped below this one (262,127 v 289,245).
