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Are You Worried About Your Blog’s Alexa Rank
Table of Contents What is Alexa Rank and How Does it WorkWhat Caused My Blog Alexa Ranking to…
Table of Contents
- What is Alexa Rank and How Does it Work
- What Caused My Blog Alexa Ranking to Drop
- Why Didn’t My Blog’s Alexa Rank Increase
- Other Factors That Affect Alexa Rank of Your Blog
- Some Strange Factors that Affected my Blog’s Alexa Rank
- Why is There Difference Between the Google Analytics and Alexa Ranking Stats
- How Important is Alexa Rank for Your Blog
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When I took a summer break from blogging, as expected, my blog’s Alexa rank dropped a little. I was not really worried because I knew it would rise once I am back to blogging.
However, my real experiences were different. Aha!NOW’s Alexa ranking did not increase in spite of an increase in the blog traffic when I returned to blogging actively.
Why did my blog Alexa rank not increase? Read further to know my experiences with Alexa!
I was puzzled, so I decided to find the answers to my question. The first thing I did was to try to understand the concept of Alexa ranking and its nature of working.
Then I tried to find out how much does the Alexa rank really matter – is it a true or universal indication of your blog’s success?
I was surprised to know some of the results of my research.
I am sharing my personal case study about Alexa as so many of my blogging friends keep asking me about how to increase their Alexa ranking!
Some of you may already be aware of what I’m going to reveal, but to many this would clear the myth of Alexa ranking that they carry in their mind.
Whether you like it or not, I’m going to share it all! 🙂
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What is Alexa Rank and How Does it Work
I know that Alexa ranking is a very important and a sensitive issue for many bloggers.
Blogs and sites are judged for their success by the level of Alexa rank that they achieve.
While most bloggers and site owners know what Alexa is, the non-bloggers might not have a clue about it. Briefly, let’s first know what is Alexa all about.
According to Wikipedia, these are the Alexa facts:
- Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com, which provides commercial web traffic data.
- Its toolbar collects data on browsing behavior and transmits it to the Alexa website, where it is stored and analyzed, forming the basis for the company’s web traffic reporting.
- Alexa toolbar collects the information about the site bounce rate, reach, daily pageviews per visitor, daily time on site, audience demographics and geography, search traffic, site linking, and speed, etc.
- Alexa ranks the blogs and sites based primarily on tracking a sample set of internet traffic, which are the users of its toolbar for the Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome web browsers.
- As of 2014, Alexa provides traffic data, global rankings, and other information on 30 million websites.
Wow, this is quite a number of websites!
The fact is that Alexa collects its site ranking data from its toolbar installed in the browsers of the web surfers.
So, if 4 out of 10 people who visit my blog have Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers, my Alexa ranking would be based on the data collected from these 4 web surfers.
Suppose, the number of people visiting my blog remains the same, that is 10, but only 1 visitor has the browser with the Alexa toolbar installed, my Alexa ranking will be worse – in spite of having the same traffic.
So, even if your traffic is good, you might have a very low Alexa rank because those surfing your blog or site don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed.
I hope you now understand the working of Alexa ranking. Also, as mentioned on the Alexa site, the site ranking is relative to other sites.
“Since your site is ranked relative to other sites, changes in traffic to other sites affect your site’s rank.” ~ Alexa
Thus, Alexa ranking is NOT an indication of my real site traffic. It is not an accurate measure of the traffic of a blog.
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It is an indication of how popular it is among the web surfers who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers.
Say, there is a “Site A”, which is a quality site with a traffic of 30,000 unique visitors per month. However, the number of visitors that visit that site with the Alexa toolbar are only 500.
On the other hand, there is a “Site B” that has a traffic of 10,000 unique visitors per month, but the number of visitors with the Alexa toolbar are 2000.
Which site do you think will have a better Alexa rank?
This is no brainer. It will obviously be Site B! However, there are many other factors too that account for your blog’s increase or decrease in Alexa rank.
What Caused My Blog Alexa Ranking to Drop
As I mentioned before, my blog Alexa rank dropped just after I took my summer blogging break. Here’s the screenshot to show you what really happened.
The above image shows the drop in my blog Alexa ranking just after I took the blogging break.
Why did this happen? Why did my blog Alexa rank decrease?
- The number of my regular blog visitors decreased since I was not posting anything new on the blog.
- I was not socially promoting the blog, so there were not many new referral and social visits.
- The number of bloggers or site owners visiting my blog decreased.
- As a result, the there was a decrease in the ranking criteria of Alexa, that is, the number of daily visitors and daily pageviews.
That’s right, Alexa takes into account the number of unique visitors and pageviews when determining the site ranking.
Okay. So far so good, and all of this I was expecting. Nevertheless, this time I was determined to take a REAL blogging break and I am glad I did!
Why Didn’t My Blog’s Alexa Rank Increase
Like anybody else, I thought that when I start posting regularly and actively promote the posts, my blog Alexa rank would increase.
It did, but only slightly.
The Alexa rank then began to gradually decline. Why did this happen?
As all of you know, I had made a few changes to my blog, and as per that, there could be possibly be two reasons to cause this decline:
- I removed CommentLuv plugin to experiment with other commenting systems. That’s the reason many bloggers with the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers stopped visiting my blog to comment.
- My blog speed got slower due to the heavy load of the new community features of BuddyPress and BBPress.
Honestly, I did not expect such a drop in the visits from bloggers to Aha!NOW.
Nevertheless, I’m glad that I experimented removing CommentLuv as I could now distinguish between my loyal blog readers and the link droppers (though I still give out links in many other better ways through the community features!).
However, I do not blame those bloggers entirely who stopped visiting my blog because they were doing what they learned to do.
They are taught that the CommentLuv links could get them huge traffic to their blogs, and this is what the new bloggers tend to learn as the best way to get traffic.
Therefore, they religiously follow the “link dropping” culture, instead of developing real “relationships” with fellow bloggers or the blog owners.
No doubt, CommentLuv helps get traffic and promote your posts too, and I recommended it to the newbie bloggers as well as the seasoned ones, but that does not get you loads of traffic.
However, that’s another story you will know when I write about my commenting system experiment.
Coming back to solving the puzzle of my blog’s drop in Alexa rank, I discovered a few new things.
I studied my Google Analytics stats and found an increase in my site stats after the blogging break, in comparison to the site stats before the break.
Why did my blog Alexa rank decrease even after an increase in the site traffic?
There were two reasons:
- An increase in the site visitors who were non-bloggers and did not have the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers.
- There was a huge increase in the site visitors using their mobiles and tablets.
Now, believe it or not, these are some positive indications for my blog.
My blog has tapped into the mobile segment of web surfers, and this is a big treasure mine to explore!
However, did you know that most mobile browsers do not have the Alexa toolbar installed in them?
What? This will be a shocker to many bloggers out there – your mobile traffic is decreasing your Alexa rank!
Let me ask you – do you as a blogger or webmaster have installed the Alexa toolbar on your mobile browser?
After the blogging break, my Google Analytics stats show that most people are using the Safari browser to view my blog. And I suspect that these browsers are used to surf my blog without the Alexa toolbar in them.
My new site traffic was about 50% from mobile and 15% through tablet. The remaining 35% is from desktop (including laptop) users.
This means, 65% of my blog traffic does not have the Alexa toolbar installed in their browser for sure. There’s also no guaranty that whole of the 35% desktop traffic too has the Alexa toolbar.
No wonder the Alexa ranking is bound to decline, since my mobile and tablet traffic increased by about 15% after my blogging break.
Other Factors That Affect Alexa Rank of Your Blog
Frankly, I’m not at all complaining because I’ve never cared all that much about Alexa Rank, Page Rank, and all those kinds of things. They keep changing ALL the time, just like Google!
I do not mind my blog Alexa rank dropping a bit, because I’ve found a new stream of traffic for my blog.
That is because my blog is a life and self-development blog, useful for just any person in the world, from any walk of life!
However, let me remind you that the Alexa-rank-rising traffic comes from bloggers, webmasters, advertising and Internet marketing professionals.
(for the simple fact that they have got the Alexa toolbar installed in their web browsers.)
If you want your blog Alexa rank to rise, then you need to do this:
- Join blogging communities – more the better
- Become an active member of blogger and Internet marketing forums
- Visit blogs of popular bloggers and develop relationships with other bloggers
- Adopt the policy of blog commenting
- Share you posts with other bloggers and on the social media
- Share the content of other bloggers and link out to them
- Be consistent with blogging
- Use SEO and keyword-rich quality content
- Write content for bloggers and webmasters
- Invite popular bloggers on your blog
Of course, you might be aware of the other ways like claiming your site on Alexa, putting the Alexa widget on your blog, writing review on Alexa, and other things that you read everywhere – though they may not really be that productive.
I emphasize on SEO because if you’re on Page 1 of Google, you have greater chances of attracting the Alexa toolbar installed surfers.
However, I will also give you an example of how influencers visiting or promoting your blog can help increase the Alexa rank of your blog.
On May 30, 2014, I posted the interview with Harsh Agrawal on my blog.
The fact that it invited many new bloggers to my blog, and may be because +Harsh Agarwal himself promoted this post, I had a sudden hike in my blog’s Alexa ranking.
I call this the “Harsh Effect”! 🙂
This interview post brought many Indian bloggers to my blog. India has a large number of wonderful bloggers and most of them have the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers.
Check out the Alexa traffic stats of most sites and blogs, and you will find that among the top visitors by country under Audience Geography are Indians.
If you want to increase your blog Alexa rank fast, invite the Indian blogging community – you will see your Alexa ranking skyrocketing! I mean it! (You can ask Enstine!) 🙂
Two other important factors that affect your site’s Alexa ranking are:
- Site speed
- Number of page views
I’ve two examples to demonstrate the effect of these two factors.
If you remember my earlier post on increasing site speed, the site speed of Aha!NOW that time was pretty good.
However, recently my blog load time increased because of the new community features that I added.
Probably this dissuaded many visitors to not view many pages and turn away from the blog.
My husband Vinay, performed site speed increasing operations on the blog on Aug 1, and you can see the effect on the page views of the blog thereafter.
This clearly shows that your site speed IS related to your site’s page views, and hence your blog’s Alexa ranking. The more the site load times, less will be the site page views, and vice-versa.
Let’s take a long shot. Viewing this will give you a better idea of how the page speed affects the page views.
So, maybe it was mainly the heavy site load times that caused my blog Alexa rank to drop.
The fluctuation in your site’s Alexa page views also affects the Alexa rank.
Many sites break the articles into various pages for this purpose. The pagination increases the page views if the visitor were to read the article.
Am I missing any other important Alexa rank affecting factor?
- Reach
As per Alexa, “Reach” measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site.
To increase your reach, you need to explore new frontiers of audience. You need to break into new blogging circles, or tap new country or region readership, or altogether have more and more of people visiting your blog or website.
You can achieve this aim by at least doing this three things:
- Extensive Social Media Promotion
- Developing New Relationships
- Writing Viral and Useful Content
I’m sure you all agree with the above and have many more ideas in your mind as you read this. Please share them in the comments.
Do you want to learn more from my experiments with Alexa? I’ve some strange incidents to share with you.
Some Strange Factors that Affected my Blog’s Alexa Rank
Accidentally I experienced and witnessed two separate incidents that changed my blog’s Alexa ranking and page views.
The image below shows the complete duration of my blogging break and the behavior of Alexa ranking during that period.
There was a period of about one week during my summer break, when I had put the blog on maintenance to test out some of the new community features that I was planning to add to my blog.
These were BuddyPress and BBPress plugins that add community activity, groups, and forums for enhanced engagement of visitors.
To test out the features, I used a plugin that created a dummy data, users, and activities on my blog.
To my surprise, my blog Alexa rank increased during this trial period even when there were no visitors to my blog!
This not only fooled my Alexa ranking, but even inflated my Google Analytics stats.
The dummy activity on my blog increased the Average time session duration, pages per session, pageviews, and even reduced the bounce rate on my Google Analytics.
This shows that you must really exclude your own site from the Google Analytics tracking to get the accurate site stats. I wonder how many bloggers really do that! 🙂
Also, it proves that it is easy to manipulate Alexa ranking.
I’ve read that some people use proxy server’s to create more unique visitors and pageviews for their site.
Some people even go to the extent of buying Alexa visitors for their targeted country to strengthen their candidature for advertisers of that country!
Another incident that gave me sleepless nights and loads of worries was when I agreed to install an ad script on my blog given to me by a media agency, which promised that it’s ads will give more revenue than Google Adsense.
When you look at this image below, you will know what exactly happened.
See how sharply your Alexa rank can fall by just adding a simple script! Same way, some people use the black hat techniques and scripts to make the Alexa rise unnaturally.
Now, good bloggers should consider that a taboo – no malpractice. Don’t be fake, be real!
From this incident, I learned a lesson never to install any unknown and unreliable external script on my blog.
Many media agencies keep approaching me to test their ads, luring me with better revenue promises, but I straightforwardly refuse them now.
Your site Alexa rank keeps fluctuating depending upon the activities on your site as well as the algorithmic changes of Google and Alexa.
Below you can see the ups and downs of Alexa rank of Aha!NOW for the past one year.
I hope by now you know the reasons for the ups and down of Alexa ranking that you experience on your blog.
Moreover, you also know the ways to increase your site’s Alexa rank I hope I’m successful in lowering your worries about the decrease in your blog Alexa ranking.
Why is There Difference Between the Google Analytics and Alexa Ranking Stats
This one question has been bugging me for a long time. I am glad that I’ve deciphered it at last!
Remember, Alexa Stats are the stats ONLY of the Alexa toolbar bearing visitors to your blog.
The engagement data of Alexa shows how many pages does an Alexa toolbar installed visitor views on average, how much time does that Alexa toolbar bearer spends on your blog, and how many of them bounce off your blog after a single page view.
Whereas, the Google Analytics stats include activities of all the visitors to your site. It includes all those who are Alexa toolbar bearers and those who are not.
In addition, my Alexa stats tell me that most of the visitors to my blog are from India, United States, Nigeria, United Kingdom, and Pakistan – in this very order.
However, the Google Analytics stats put the visitor countries in this order – United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
This means that more of my Indian visitors than the Americans have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browsers.
Evidently, almost all visitors from Nigeria and Pakistan visiting my blog are bloggers.
In addition, visitors to my blog from Canada and Australia are generally non-bloggers or site owners.
You can reveal so much about your site traffic by studying the Google Analytics and Alexa stats.
Furthermore, my Alexa search traffic stats show that about 3.7% of the Alexa toolbar bearers visit my blog.
Whereas, my blog Google Analytics tells me that about 30% of visits to my blog are from search engines.
So, probably, most of my search engine visitors do not have the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers.
As you see, you cannot totally rely on your Alexa stats. Your site Alexa stats are NOT the true indication of your site traffic and particulars.
The Alexa stats only shows the popularity and engagement stats of your blog among all the Alexa tool bar bearers in the world, which is roughly about 30 million Internet users or blogs.
How Important is Alexa Rank for Your Blog
Site and blog owners love Alexa rank for mainly three purposes:
- It increases reputation among site owners and bloggers because they DO see and talk about the Alexa rank, PR (Page Rank), or MOZ rank of a blog!
- It invites ad proposals from those who give value to Alexa rank.
- It helps analyze your competition.
Love it or hate it, you need the Alexa traffic stats.
However, is your blog’s Alexa rank really an indication of your blog traffic?
Let’s take a look from a larger perspective.
The web is growing at a very fast rate. According to NetCraft, in 2011, the number of websites in the world just doubled.
In 2013, the web grew by more than one-third of its size. Presently, as per Internet Live Stats, there are about 1 billion websites in the world, though not all of these website are active.
It is estimated that 75% of these websites are inactive. We really don’t know the exact stats and it is really very difficult to calculate the number of active sites.
For estimation purposes, we take the number of active websites to be 250 million.
So, out of these 250 million websites, Alexa provide the information of 30 million websites. That’s roughly 12% of the total number of active websites in the world.
With about 88% of website being left out, does Alexa rank make much sense?
Let’s see the picture from another perspective.
Talking of the number of Internet users, it will be touching the mark of 3 billion by the end of this year.
Just imagine, out of the 7 billion people in this world, about 40% uses the Internet for various purposes. Not all of them are bloggers.
Majority of them are simply web surfers. These web surfers do not have the Alexa toolbar on their web browsers.
That’s right.
None of the major Internet browser comes with pre-installed Alexa toolbar, and the majority of the normal internet-surfing public does not install the Alexa Toolbar. Most don’t even know of this term!!
Alexa does not declare the number of toolbar downloads, but in 2005, it was believed to be 10 million.
Let’s suppose that this number is 30 million today, equal to the number of websites that have Alexa toolbar.
So, out of the 3 billion Internet users, about 30 million have the Alexa toolbar installed in their web browsers. That’s roughly only 1% of the total net users!
Now I know we can interpret these stats in different terms and it will all come out with different results.
We’re not concerned with the real numbers, but just the rough idea that we get by analyzing these stats.
The numbers of Alexa toolbar users is far less than the number of total Internet users.
Thus, Alexa ranking does not give you the true and complete picture.
Are you still obsessed about the Alexa rank of your blog?
Well, I know what you will say – you have to just follow the norm and do what all others are doing, because eventually it benefits you.
We all do it because the Advertisers give so much of importance to the Alexa ranking.
Alexa does provide its certified stats for all visitors to your blog irrespective of whether you have the Alexa toolbar installed or not, if you put their script on your blog under a paid plan, but I wonder if it is any better than your Google Analytics stats.
Okay, here’s one more suggestion I have for you. Try to convince the non-Alexa toolbar visitors to your site to download and install the Alexa toolbar on their web browsers. Voila!
This would increase the Alexa rank of blogs like Aha!NOW, whose main audience are not bloggers or Internet marketers.
Nevertheless, all my commentators and loyal friends are mostly my blogging friends 🙂 and I am SO grateful to all of them for making this a wonderful blog community. 🙂
Alexa gives you the option to create your own toolbar and offer it on your blog to your visitors to download.
This is what the best non-technical and non-blogging sites can do to increase their Alexa ranking.
Another big boost to the Alexa rank would be when the mobile and tablet users will add the Alexa toolbar to their browsers. I’m waiting for that day! 🙂
Interestingly, the number of mobile-cellular subscriptions in the world will be reaching the mark of 7 billion! Wow!!
That’s very promising for our blogs, isn’t it?
If you are an android mobile surfer, then please visit the Google Play Store and download the FREE Alexa toolbar or widget of your choice.
So, I hope you are NOW convinced that a low Alexa rank or a drop in your Alexa ranking is not purely an indication of a drop in your blog popularity or the blog traffic. 🙂
If you want to read more about this topic, visit Babanature’s post about how Alexa ranking works and read similar titled post on +Ana Hoffman’s Traffic Generation blog.
You should also read the latest blog post on Alexa that states that Alexa’s measurement panel is not only based on its toolbar but also on a very large and diverse set of browser extensions and plug-ins.
They claim Alexa gets its traffic stats from 25,000 different browser extensions, so it’s not only the bloggers, internet marketers, or webmasters, but people from other walks-of-life that should matter to you! What do you think?
In the end I’d say, if you are a good and consistent blogger, writing content that helps your readers, and socialize in the blogging communities, you will get traffic – whether they are bloggers or non-bloggers.
Don’t worry about Alexa, your actual Google Analytics traffic stats matters more!
Share Your Thoughts:
Does your blog’s Alexa ranking really matter to you? What do you do to increase the Alexa rank of your site? Did you learn any lessons from this post? Share in the comments.
Photo Credit: 123RF Stock Photo
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Excellent article. My Alexa rank also decreasing even though I am continuously blogging on a daily basis and promoting them on social media. People say Alexa is not important and is outdated. My aim is to bring Alexa rank to 300,000 but I think it’s difficult.
Hello,
Thanks for writing beautiful content Harleen mam.
I am worried about my blogs alexa ranking. Infact most of the clients check alexa ranking till this date.
There are certain strategies why i read to increase alexa ranking but its one one night thing. Improving alexa ranking is the on going task.
These kin d post does really gives great relief.
I found it worth sharing post with my social media friends.
Thanks,
Bhargav
Amazing study harleena, I haven’t something so deep about alexa ranking anywhere. And trust me I was looking for something like this.
Keep the good work flowing.
Thanks!
Hello dear,
Thanks a lot for this article.
If someone wants to improve their site’s Alexa rank in a short time, I think your article will be the best for them.
Keep writing.
Hi Harleena Ma’am,
As a new blogger, i was very serious about alexa ranking but after reading of your article, i am really feeling very light.
Really, very helpful article that is helping to new blogger like us.
Thank you so much.
thank you so much for this helpful information about Alexa.I believe on blogging consistently, daily, if possible, improve your Alexa rank. When I started blogging 4 months ago, I didn’t pay attention on Alexa due to the fact I am not aware of, my rank to start with was 7 million and now I am down to 2.8 million, it improves daily as I keep updated my blog daily, just for 7 days my Alexa went down to half million, that’s quite an achievement for me, I am looking forward for 100k Alexa rank before end of this year.
thank you to all of you who shared your success with us because we’ve learned a lot from you.
Hello Harleena Ma’am,
This article is more than what Alexa Staff knows about their system. You collected huge and wonderful information. I never depend on Alexa for earning. It only helps in Getting Reviews from Sponsers. Not more than that.
Yes i am worried about this, as i am working on a tech blog since 15 days and it dont have alexa rank. but read this stuffs and quite helpful for me.
thanks harleen mam.
Hello Harleena,
Well, I think Alexa is just similar to a website and is ranking on their own set of protocols but when it comes to get Advertisers you need a good Alexa. I came across some of the tools which can cheat Alexa. I don’t support Alexa.
I believe content is the king in blogging.
Regards
Amit
Hi Harleena
Thanks for giving such detailed information on Alexa Ranking. Its very informative and at the same time made simple for understanding of new bloggers. Didn’t find any other post on Alexa which is as informative as this post is.
Very useful insight about the reality of Alexa.intact Alexa don’t representhe success of bloggers .if we measure our site with other like quantcast etc .they give different figures .bit confusing
wow Great Article you have Great Knowledge about Alexa and i Was just Ammazed by Seeing your Alexa Rank Increase on Harsh Effect Means After Harsh Agarwal Interview and Thanks for Sharing your Amazing Experience with Us
Wow, Mam you have brought up so many new things about alexa ranking to my notice. Although I tought it’s their widget that they used to measure it before but now you lemme know it’s the alexa toolbar.
You discuss site speed can you let me know how to know and increase site speed.
How to know seo score and lots more to improve my blog.
Hey Harleena mam,
You are the monarch of blogosphere. What an extraordinary elaboration with each and every moment perspectives as though nothing is left to clarify.
Fabulous post ever go over in regards to alexa. Omg I wish I can reach to each focuses in clarifying things on any topic.
Truly before your post I had few myths about alexa however you recouped it. Yet at the same time alexa is essential for having sponsors as you excessively said in your post the significance in the event that it.
Much appreciated a zillion for offering such a magnificent post.
Thank you very much for the write up.
I actually don’t give importance to Alexa very much. Because the ranking is estimated. Not based upon the real number of traffic. Alexa just collects data from toolbar enabled users.
I think it doesn’t make any sense. Because there is so many niches where the users are not familiar to this toolbar. So those niche sites will usually rank lower however they have tons of traffics or not.
This is not a proper tool to measure accurate traffic, but I don’t know why still a lot of advertisers depend on it. Sometimes the advertisers lose to choose proper sites for advertisement. I would suggest them to use alternatives (ex: Google Analytics) to have no more loss.
Thanks for sharing the inspiring story. Your experience has been very motivating for new bloggers like me.
Hi Harleena Mam!
Although Alexa didn’t matter a lot these days but it surely matters when you are going to put your blog for approval in huge advertising networks and every blogger is so keen to have a high alexa rank as it also lets you know how your blog is making.
Thanks, its gonna help me!
Keep writing 🙂
This is a very great writeup. Have followed the steps you mentioned and my Alexa ranking is gradually decrease but my country rank is doing the opposite. What can be the cause of this or what am I doing wrong.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing this great experiment post. After read your post I just know that alexa toolbar in browser is very important. Before I think that was only marketing idea. But after read your experiment now I believe that. Thank you very much.
Thanks for sharing information Harleena. Alexa rank is calculated on the basis of Alexa Tool bar. Good post.
Hii Harleena mam,
I am 100% agree with your statement “Alexa ranking is NOT an indication of real site traffic. It is not an accurate measure of the traffic of a blog.”
I have experienced that one of my Blog’s Alexa rank is 470,078 but i am getting nice visitors and making nice money too while one of my blog is under 90k but still i am neither getting sufficient visitors nor making nice money.
Thank you so much for sharing this awesome article which is based on your real experience. Keep updating 🙂
– Amit Kumar
Hi Harleena,
One question, why did I just found this article recently? 😀
I really like this article, Harleena. And why is it?
Because I’m also experiencing the same thing with you. The difference is I don’t know the exact reason why my Alexa decreased exactly when I take a break, just like you.
I’ve heard about the Alexa toolbar, but not too concerned about it. Now, I finally understand it. And it’s all thanks to you 🙂
It’s a very long article, but I get a lot of benefit from this. After this, it looks like I will not bother again with my alexa decrease that occurred in my blog.
Thanks for sharing this, Harleena.
Very helpful for me!
Regards,
Nanda
I only started paying attention to my blog’s Alexa ranking recently and I wasn’t really sure if I should put effort into trying to get a better one. Thank you for sharing this very thorough analysis and breakdown!
Lol, with 126 comments and counting, you certainly haven’t been hurt by getting rid of CommentLuv, Harleena!
This is such a great explanation of Alexa, not only with the graphs but also with the insights you provide. I never thought about how people visiting on mobile devices would affect Alexa rank.
I also like your point about how Alexa ranks are relative. No matter how much traffic you get, there may be sites who are increasing their traffic as well. It’s like sports, if you score 100 points you win if someone scores fewer points. But if someone else scores 101 points, well you lose.
You’re right about not worrying about Alexa rank too much. All we can do is our best and let Alexa do its thing!
This is the best way to find the “aha-why” reasons for the increase in Alexa rank. You have really dissected it and my mind is now open to all the nitty-gritty of the workings of Alexa ranking. So this is how it works! I would trust my site the more.
But I say you mentioned site speed and pageview without saying much on them ( or did I miss the part?). An update would be better, so your audience woukdnt have to go elsewhere to find the “aha-how” of pageviews and site speed.
It’s such an aha-lovely moment of me. Thanks and stay great
Great call removing commentluv. I remember experimenting with it for a while, it wasn’t worth it. Fake blog growth techniques get old real quick.
I remember hearing in another Alexa rank review on an SEO blog a funny quote, “I take my low Alexa rank as a sign that my audience is too internet savvy to install the Alexa toolbar.”
I must admit, while I know it’s not the most important thing to have a high Alexa rank – it’s hard NOT to care about and check frequently.
A very insightful article on Alexa traffic and rank. I personally figured out that Alexa rank vastly depends on the traffic that my blog is getting over a span of time. Moreover, it is clearly stated in Alexa that the past 3 months are included in the reports. So, in the past three months if I have heavily promoted and brought in a lot of traffic, my rank can improve. In fact, last year during the end I have faced a similar situation which proved this fact. My rank was well around 5 hundred thousand in September. I took a break around October and in November the rank slid back down to 10 hundred thousand.
Several experts have also mentioned that Alexa is best to be checked on a monthly basis. Anyways nice post Mam. Very informative
Thanks for sharing your research. It was informative and enlightening.
Hi Harleena,
Great research about Alexa. I have seen that most of the bloggers don’t care about their Alexa ranking. But it is a fact that mostly advertisers consider your Alexa ranking. . No doubt Alexa rank shows your reputation among other bloggers as well as advertisers so they always make business with good Alexa rank based websites. Also remember that there is always difference between Alexa ranking report and analytic report. So, we are really grateful to you for sharing such a nice and thoroughly article.
Wow! Just got answers of all my questions in a single post.Was so confused about Alexa.Now understood the real game.Thanks for sharing Harleena Madam!
hello Harleena,
aha again a wonderful post i read here. thanks for this. i really want to stay in some blog and i usually do stay in your blog. i learned a lot from here.
Hi Harleena,
That’s a full detailed study case that got my attention and answered most of my questions about Alexa rank, so thank you very much!
The fact that I have a beauty blog makes most of my visitors are non technicians, mostly ordinary women seeking for beauty advice. Your suggestion for installing a customized Alexa tool bar sounds good for my blog. I have got to check it out.
Thanks again 🙂
Wow! Harleena – That was a great post. The post must have took me more than half an hour to read but was worth it. The one think I learned is that any keyword strategy that uses the Alexa Ranking is flawed. The tips were good so I think the Alexa ranking shouldn’t be ignored since their are so many that use the Alexa tool bar so that is a large amount of traffic.
Thanks Harleena for such am informative post.
great post and case study. I watch Alexa ranking eventhough I knew it is based on a guestimate and extrapolation of small set of toolbar installed users. It is a metric and exiting to track your sites progress. Like any poll study, it is not going to be perfect. Also, I heard it is more accurate with sites under 100K ranking as the sample set may be bigger. Also, Google analytics gives you the internals of your site, but Alexa compares your site to others. Till there is a better option, I’ll keep watching Alexa 🙂 Since it is owned by Amazon, I expect they will make it better over time.
Hi Harleena, Thanks for clearing that up for me, always wondered how that worked. I’m looking to find web traffic charts or statastics for sites that have over 1 million Alexa rank. Alexa only goes to 100 thousand. If you know of any, please let me know, thank you.
hello Harleena ma’am,
after reading your post i got some more valuable information about alexa.. i alos like alexa rank coz if our blog have good alexa rank so we can get sponsor review and more
if we are talking about technology blog it is more batter for sponsor review 🙂
And thanks for this post.
Rahul Kashyap
Nice and informative post!
In some blogger sites, Alexa rank is used as one of the metric for coming up with the overall ranking of a blog. After reading your blog, I wonder how much weightage an Alexa ranking should be given by these blog sites.
If Alexa ranking is only applicable to readers who have Alexa toolbar installed, then it’s not a fair game – and we are not comparing Apples with Apples, when doing comparative ranking among blogs.
I will definitely pass on this information to those blog sites.
– Venkat
Harleena, you’re an absolute gem for posting this. I must confess not having understood previously how this worked, but realized the system was flawed. I wish sites would be ranked according to content quality instead of the amount of hits, but there again I might not have found yours otherwise!
Harleena- I use Alexa as a barometer of how my site is doing. It has never been accurate. I knew that Alexa’s rankings come from installing a toolbar. If you want to increase your own rankings, install the toolbar, and hit on your site several times a day.
Hello Harleena, Wao what a Great Article, I had no idea really how Alexa worked, and now I guess I do… It is a new world out there and I for one know a lot of people who search the internet with their phones..
Everywhere you look you see someone on thier phone doing some sort of a search HUH? So this does explain alot of the reason why your ratings didnt go back up..
It has been a while since I checked mine, I did have a google app on my computer that showed me this but not sure what happened looks like it just dissappeared..
Well Thanks for the very informative post here tonight, I do appreciate it. Make it an Awesome New Week.. Chery :))
Hi Harleena,
All I will say is I just love your comprehensive post.
I know it is meant to discourage worries about Alexa but it has actually motivated me to be more attentive to the happenings on my blog because I would like it to attract business and a good Alexa rank seems to help a great deal in that regard. I tend to be more haphazard in my approach and after reading this post I feel that if I am to get anywhere, I need to change some things.
I also want to look very closely at what I have done to get my improved Alexa ranking. It took me 3 years or so to get my ranking to 250 000 when I was on blogger and when I moved to WordPress it to 4 months to get it to its current 96 000.
I also don’t do any browsing on any of my mobile devices, but I try to make sure that my posts are mobile device friendly, hopefully this helps too.
Between your blog and Enstine’s I am learning a lot to develop as an entrepreneurial blogger.
Thank you again, i have learnt much.
You are one prolific woman, Harleena, and you do everything with perfection to the nth degree! This is a report that is worth charging for, so much information here. Thank you for explaining the mysterious Alexa ranking. And for everything else here. You’re a gem! So glad to have you as a resource.
Hi Harleena,
Thanks for sharing your analysis with us. It was very interesting to read. I always appreciate it when bloggers are willing to give us a little insight into their blogs.
I do not have the Alexa toolbar installed and while our Alexa ranking is important to potential advertisers, I really don’t give it that much credence. In the past, I displayed the Alexa widget and did care but it slowed down my site and several bloggers suggested that I ditch it.
I tend to leave comments on a lot of CommentLuv blogs but it’s not for the backlink. It’s mainly because a lot of the bloggers who I’ve connected with over the years have either had CL installed at one point or leave comments on CL enabled blogs. I continue to keep CommentLuv as my commenting system but I’m always interested in hearing how these experiments work. So, I look forward to hearing from you what you end up choosing for your commenting system.
Good luck with the changes that you’ve made on AHA. I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a forum to my blog before. It is resource intensive though (in many ways).
~Sherryl
Hello Harleena Ma’am,
This article is more than what Alexa Staff knows about their system. You collected huge and wonderful information. I never depend on Alexa for earning. It only helps in Getting Reviews from Sponsers. Not more than that.
And ” Harsh Effect ” is always good for any blog. He is genius guy.
Thanks for this guide and Have a Nice Day Ahead!
indeed
well said mam
i agree to your all tips, but i think it doesn’t increase because of the frequency of posts, or lesser backlinks
my little strategy of decreasing alexa is
design of the site
backlinks
unique visitors
well i am not that experienced as you harleena
really will take this post serious and make my new blog a great success with alexa and back links
thanks for this wonderful strategy
Hello Harleena,
Great article. Even, I faced the same issue on my summer vacation and was researching about the same. But, you cleared all my doubt here. Really well deep research.
Hoping to have your kind feedback on my blog too.
Hey Harleena,
It’s really an interesting one.:)
In my opinion we can just have some idea about Alexa ranking. Most of bloggers say that if bloggers want to know the growth of any blog then they must see Alexa ranking but it’s not true.
Alexa count no. of visits only of the people who have installed Alexa toolbar in their browser but it’s not necessary that every single person install this toolbar. Many beginners don;t even know about it and they visit many blogs everyday but there visit is not considered by Alexa.
Bloggers must focus on their work, their consistency and hard work. Rest they should focus on building relationships which can drive traffic to their blog with loyal visitors.
Thanks for this amazing article.
Hope you have a nice weekend.:)
~Ravi
Hi Harleena,
Again, I am late to the party, sorry about that.
However, I am glad I am here.
To be honest, I have made more money after my Alexa Rank tanked than I was when my Alexa was going really-really good.
Last year and the year before my focus was on making money through advertisements and as you know, most people who target that method of making money spend countless hours trying to get Alexa down under 100K. Well, I was one of them and I was succeeding.
However, this year my situation changed, financial needs changed and I needed to make a shift in my approach.So, I stopped focusing on Alexa and began focusing on avenues that gave more predictable and stable income.
That changed everything. Today, I spend less time looking at Alexa and more time analyzing my brand’s influence. I spend more time looking for ways to get more customers, new orders and more joint ventures. Obviously, real work means more real and stable money and it has happened to me since the beginning of this year.
Honestly speaking, I care less about Alexa (or even page rank) because that doesn’t increase my bank balance. The real money comes from real people, real marketing and I would rather focus on things that really matter than worry about these dead (or dying) horses!
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Harleena,
This is a fabulous and detailed post. I to do not pay a lot of attention to Alexa rank but I do care at the same time if that makes sense 🙂
The reason I care is because so many look at Alexa rank and begin to judge you blog based on the results. I have read some fabulous blogs that Alexa rank was not that attractive.
Also it is not hard to manipulate your Alexa rank if your that interested in lowering it. Like you mentioned, these sites and their rankings change so often and some focus so much attention on these figures rather than focus on, in my opinion, whats most important, our readers.
I really appreciate this post. You mention points that not only help Alexa ranking but just the over all performance etc of ones blog. So by just doing what’s best for our blog, we will get a lower Alexa rank anyway 🙂
Have a great weekend Harleena!
Wonderful, detailed post Harleena 🙂 I’ve learnt quite a few things – especially about the personalized Alexa toolbar.
Now I don’t care too much about my site’s Alexa rank number coz I know that it is not a representation of my site’s “real” traffic. But I DO pay attention to the fluctuation and the pattern – it does say something; but then it also does not say everything. For instance, in your case the increase in mobile traffic shows a decrease in Alexa Rank and what can someone who doesn’t know about this fact draw from their Alexa rank number? It is a matter of confusion.
Nevertheless Alexa rank plays a crucial role in your website’s statistics – advertisers still do see that number to determine the site’s quality.
Thanks for sharing your detailed case study.
On a side note – I totally agree with you on Commentluv 🙂 I recently switched to Disqus on all my blogs and I am going to write a post shortly about my experience without Commentluv and with Disqus 🙂
Hi Harleena,
This is a very detailed article and it surely helped me. I have the Alexa toolbar installed but forget about it sometimes. I try to write from the heart and of course try to solve problems I think my readers are having or may be interested in.
I really never knew all this about Alexa so I am glad to finally know how it works and what all goes into that score. You are an inspiration and when I say your stats it only motivates me. You are awesome and thanks for sharing.
Wow this is a lot of info I didn’t know about Harleena. I had no idea bloggers and other site owners visits impacted your ranking, or that the number of people with the toolbar visiting your site could be measured. I’m glad you were able to find all this stuff out. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with it all.
Alexa info was always very weird to me because the other info it provides on sites are not accurate. And I always wondered if site engagement was a factor.
Very educational post.
~Lea
Very interesting article on Alexa ranking. You seem to have covered most of the things that you want to know what it is and what it does and how to lower it. I have stopped worrying about it now. Although traffic and the quality of traffic that converts is more important to me.
Great article Harleena, very comprehensive.
Hi Harleena
One of the most comprehensive posts on Alexa ranking I ever read.
Before starting I was just thinking to cast a cursory glance on it but in first paragraph I got such historical info about it I stayed with it till the end.
Between the lines you revealed another big secret. I would say it a point of irriation for many mainstream bloggers. They are the bloggers not directly related with technology or technology related niches like blogging and money making.
Their target audience is not techie by nature. So most of their readers don’t bother to install Alexa tool bar.
So a few of them have Alexa tool bar and Alexa can’t examine response level with its set tools and that is why mainstream niche blog gets rise in Alexa ranking after a long time. This I observed at my green blog.
So bloggers with non-techie niches need not be much disturbed if their Alexa ranking moves up very slowly.
Thanks a lot for sharing a very well-researched techie post with lot of practical examples in it.
Hi Harleena,
Thanks for sharing this much needed article because, Ya know, for the longest time I didn’t understand how Alexa works, and I’m sure you are helping a lot of people by posting this!
Yep, careful distinction needed to be made about Alexa being an indication only of traffic from web surfers who have the Alexa toolbar on their browsers. I have never used the Alexa toolbar and can’t stand toolbars in general, so there you go.
I use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to give me most of my data.
I check my Alexa rank every once in a while, but don’t really pay that much attention to it. You’re right, they are changing all the time. However, it is nice to see the ranking go down steadily, which is because I am following the data and suggestions for my Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools data…
You said it: “link dropping culture” <— can’t stand that and have never liked it even when I did use CommentLuv… Don’t like the mentality it seems to cultivate…
Yep, site speed is very relevant, and I am in the process of tweaking this again myself on my site.
Thanks for your thought-provoking article, I will be sharing right now! 🙂
Have an awesome day.
– Carol Amato
Wow, you really have done a lot of research into Alexa! My ranking for one of my sites was always reasonable, but to be honest I havnt even checked it out for my newest site. I have been paying a lot more attention to my Google analytics.
It’s interesting to see just how easy it is to manipulate the rankings and with bloggers affecting their own rankings, how much of a real analytic are they actually seeing?!
I had been thinking recently that I needed to pay more attention to my rankling, but might keep it on the back burner for a bit and concentrate on other blogging activities for a while longer!
Great post Harleena. I try to not get too caught up in the stats because I know it will drive me crazy. I was surprised at mobile phone users affecting the Alexa ranking though but it totally makes sense.
Hello,
My website’s alexa ranking is also going down because of no updates. I was worried about my alexa rankings. But now I got all the answers of my questions.
Thanks
Diana
Alexa just gives a general idea about how well a website is performing. It can never tell accurately how much traffic a website is actually getting.
Hello Harleena madam,
This is a superb post on alexa I have read so far. Trust me I never cared about alexa because when I joined the blogging bandwagon I was told by many that if no seasoned bloggers run behind alexa and the reasons for such a statement were the same you mentioned.
But I was amazed when my blog alexa increased from a jaw dropping 32crore to just 2lacs in two weeks time. Though we say its not important some advertisers still consider it a metric for the deal.
This cleared all the doubts of mine and hopefully did the same for other readers and I loved the way you linked to other resources open-heartedly to help us get a clear picture. I would conclude by saying even if alexa may not be that useful its no wrong to optimise it. It will only add another feather to our crown. Isn’t it? 🙂
Hello Harleena,
This is what I called the “Bloggers Bible to Alexa Myths”.
In all honesty, I don’t worry much over my blog alexa traffic rank – though, I use it for blog marketing purposes. Like any advertiser would.
Until a day when all internet web browsers would come pre-install with Alexa toolbar (on all devices – mobile,desktop, laptops, iPad, tablet etc) we will never have a true traffic rank of all websites.
And you right about Indians been one of the most active bloggers on the continent in-terms of blog engagements; I too have noticed that and it’s good for the industry.
Concerning the decrease in traffic during your blogging break, I too have had similar experience when I took a month off blogging. It was during this period I learned to build my content around what people are searching for through the search engines.
Believe me, the more you have pages that are performing well in the SERP, the less your task of finding readers for your blog and less money, time and resources been spent on marketing your blog.
And before I go, it would be best if you can be offering a pdf downloadable version of a great post like this one.
Think about it, this post worth reading 3,4,5 times or even more.
Thanks.
Hi Harleena,
Great post! it’s very helpful for use to know more about the ranking. Thx
Hi Harleena mam,
You are the queen of blogosphere. What a great elaboration with every single minute aspects as if nothing is left to explain.
Excellent post ever come across regarding alexa. Omg I wish I can reach to every points in explaining things on any subject matter.
Really before your post I had few myths about alexa but you recovered it. But still alexa is important for having advertisers as you too mentioned in your post the importance if it.
Thanks a zillion for sharing such a awesome post.
This is definitely, by far, the best researched post about Alexa ranking I’ve ever read, Harleena – so much so that I’ve learned a few things myself.
First of all, surprised your Alexa ranking dropped so quickly and so drastically. Last time I took a break (almost 6 months), I went from about 9K to some 20K – really not that much all things considered.
Never considered that the more people use mobile devices to read our sites, the more our Alexa ranking increases (this is the one instance where we want the number to decrease vs increase, lol); completely makes sense though!
Never heard of Alexa personalized toolbar either; I’ve been using Shared.by for that.
Again, thanks so much for bringing me to this post – you did me a big favor by teaching me a few traffic generation tips to think of! 😉
PS I am completely with you on CommentLuv, by the way.
Perfectly said.But for tech blog i could not have more traffic from bloggers
Wow Harleena!!! 🙂
You are the 2nd friend who said that traffic coming from Alexa is not as accurate. I thought I knew all about Alexa, but after reading your thorough case study, it just reveals how much I do not know really.
Yes, it’s true that I check everyday my Alexa ranking more than my Google Analytics. In fact a lot in the GA still confuse me very much.
I didn’t know that Alexa only count those who have Alexa toolbar installed. That’s very deceiving. Because not everyone has the toolbar. And I don’t have it on my iPhone neither my tablet; just on my computers. Also, I have been contemplating on this “sponsor advertisement” as well. I know that advertisers measures your Alexa ranking when they want to display their banners in your blog.
Since I don’t really rely on how much traffic I get online anymore either but rather concentrate more with my RELATIONSHIP (offline & online) instead, I’m not too worried about Alexa neither Page Rank anymore.
A website that has high PR or great Alexa ranking doesn’t convey either that their site is successful or are they really making money.
There are other ways to TARGET audience besides having a great Alexa rank. Some people have achieved this through their eBooks, YouTube tutorial videos, Podcasts, or having courses in Udemy.
ITune, Udemy, and other close encounters with real business owners face-to-face is something I am working out more. My personal encounter with other business owners IRL is doing very good.
I think when we are too anxious about our Alexa ranking or PR online, blogging becomes more like a chore. I start to lose interest in blogging fast this way. So only in my RELATIONSHIP with others, I will measure my success!
Thank you so much for sharing your very thorough case study. This is great. Nothing beats based from your own experience. Kudos to you!!! Have a lovely weekly friend.
Angela
Hi,
Well that is some interesting findings. I completely agree with all of the findings, but in the end Alexa rank is the most basic check many advertisers and bloggers do. So, it is a nice show off. Paid version of Alexa might be good and it will be much better stats.
I am not worried for Alexa rank, but a nice Alexa rank never hurts, right?
Manipulating Alexa is very easy, but in the end one can check the pagerank to see its validity. A smart advertiser will ask for more proof than just Alexa rank.
Awesome findings, Harleena. Anyway, I find this post on Kingged.
Hey Harleena,
What a very informational post and I’m sure many of your readers really appreciate all the tests you’ve been running lately and you sharing your results with us.
When I was taking that course back in 2011 that started me on my blogging journey as you know I had a separate blog. About five months into this and getting around 80 comments per post do you want to know what everyone wanted to know from me? It wasn’t about how to get comments, how to make money like I was or how to get traffic to my site. They wanted to know how I got my Alexa rank down to 150,000 in five months. Really!
My readers wanted me to do a product on that can you believe that? Instead I wrote a post explaining pretty much what you just did without all the graphs. I know that so many people view their sites as successful or not because of the numbers. We’re taught that it’s the numbers that people pay attention to.
When my main blog was a PR4 for so long people never even noticed it until I wrote about how disappointed I was that Google bumped me down. They said they never realized it was that high!
I think that everyone has to decide what’s the most important thing to them. Now granted watching your traffic stats is how you’re going to know where your traffic is coming from but as you’ve clearly stated it’s not through Alexa. f you want advertisers on your site then those numbers will be important to them because those are really the only ones they can see.
On another note, I’m sorry you lost some traffic from disabling CommentLuv Premium and it’s just very sad that they were only here for the link love. Even having the 10 approved comments in place they still dropped by for the links. Well I say goodbye to them because you really just need your loyal reader following you anyway. I’m sure I have some that hang around me too for that but I really honestly believe the majority are my loyal readers. We each have to do what we feel is best for us though and I’m not interested in testing this out personally.
Thanks for this post and sharing your results with us. You have really been doing a lot of testing with the changes with your site this year and I hope that it’s headed in the direction that you had hoped.
Enjoy your week.
~Adrienne
Hi Harleena,
Great post and quiet a long one too :D.
You have covered almost each and every query regarding alexa. And images makes them much easy to understand. Clearly you have made a lots of efforts to pen down every detail.
I too feel alexa is not that important. Your visitors and your presence matters rest are immaterial.
Hi Harleena,
I’ve left you a comment over on Google Plus, but it’s just so much nicer here on your blog. 🙂
Again, great write-up you’ve given us here! True story: About two weeks ago, I started to write a post about Alexa. At about 600 words, I couldn’t figure out what else I could possibly say on the subject.
And I’m the guy who wrote an 8,317-word post! Haha.
But here you are writing an EPIC post on the very subject which gave me writer’s block a few weeks ago. Well done. Very informative, too. 🙂
Hey Harleena,
Man this is HUGE! Great explanation and top notch details.
For me, Alexa is just one thing. Freshness and traffic gained are the core reason for better ranking. Believe it or not, it really works that way (odd).
Anyway, thanks for sharing this dear friend!
Hi Harleena,
That was an invaluable revelation on the Alexa Ranking. One thing is clear about the this tool, its ranking factor is largely determined by the activeness on the websites which have the tools installed on the browsers.
Its readily not about engagement alone but about promoting the tool. I have new insights by virtue of learning what this ranking tool is all about.
You did a good job by taking time to explain the tool and show us what valuable factors are needed to make it rank high!
This post was found in kingged.com where it was shared and upvoted for Internet marketers and bloggers.
Yes, Alexa is not at all related with Traffic, High Traffic doesn’t mean a Good Alexa rank than the previous Alexa rank. The post is really informative, Like some of the bloggers are still not aware about it, Even I was having some doubt regarding this until a Blogger Friend of mine made me understand it.
#AlexaToolBar Visitors == #BetterAlexaRank
Hi Harleena Mam,
First off!! Let me say that you have indeed done a case study of alexa in this post. This is one of the best posts on Alexa I’ve ever read.
Coming back to the main points, well yes this site is now taking a lot of time to load. 🙁 I’m sure you are working to improve the site speed.
Well talking about alexa rank, I don’t think you must worry about it. You are really doing well with your posts and your main niche posts are really amazing, though tro be frank I read only few times as it’s out of my niche.
Alexa rank is mainly for us, I mean blogging, SEO related niche bloggers coz that’s the only thing advertisers look for in our blogs. I have an alexa of 33k and It really helps me get sponsored reviews/ posts and ads as well.
And yes, I too agree that most of the people come here just to get a link back to thier site. 😉 Not me. I comment only whenever I feel to do so.
Thanks again.
Iftekhar Ahmed
Hi Harleena,
I don’t put much stock in rankings any more but I didn’t know that Alexa rankings depend on whether or not visitors to your site have the alexa tool bar in their browser.
Interesting!
I have a site that gets over 1000 visitors a day but it’s Alexa ranking is terrible so what you say makes sense.
The site attracts young moms who don’t use the internet for anything except to search for information and socializing with friends. They are not web savvy. They don’t own websites or do any business on the web and most don’t even know what Alexa is. Yet that’s the the site I make the most money from.
So in this case it’s important to look at your visitors and understand their knowledge. For my website I mentioned here Alexa wouldn’t be the the tool I’d use to measure success simply because of who my visitors are.
BTW Harleena. I haven’t added comments to your blog lately not because you made changes to your blog or gave up commentluv. I’ve just been super busy with my other blogs. I’ve missed being here 🙂
Blessings,
Liz
Hi Harleena,
I wondered if your diversity in posts may also have hurt. You have two audiences. One are bloggers and the other are families wanintg advice. Very different. And this can be a cause in losing traffic and people who are subscribed. If people subscribe bc they like one thing, they get too much of something else, they unsubscribe. This is something I have been fixing on my site! Hope this helps!
Wow Harleena – quite the post on Alexa here. I do have the toolbar installed but not on my mobile. I didn’t realize how mobile would effect it too or that we could load it on our mobile devices. Thanks for that info.
It is kinda sad that advertisers look at this ranking as it’s not 100% fair and square since one has to the toolbar on their computer to be counted as a visitor.
And Google makes so many changes it’s hard to rely on pagerank. I think maybe Domain Authority is probably the best way today to test our site’s effectiveness.
I don’t focus much on these numbers anymore as I do the interaction on my blog and the blog visits via my Slim Stat statistics.
Thanks for sharing all this on Alexa ranking Harleena – very informative!
Hi Harleena,
This post was particularly useful to me as I usually wondered about Alexa ranking. After reading your completely analyzed post I now what it is all about. I have bookmarked this page for future reference as my blog now has very few visitors. I am prepared to learn and wait.
Very informative article, Harleena.
When I first started blogging, I use to put a lot of focus on increasing my Alexa rank, but I don’t do that anymore. I don’t even remember when was the the last time an advertiser asked me about alexa rank, but that doesn’t mean it is not useful. I know a lot people who use it as a standard metric for measuring the success of their website.
Hi Harleena,
Very impressive presentation. You sure did your homework! I have read your comments on other blogs and have observed you are very thorough in your comments.
I know about Alexa rankings and how it seems to play a very important role in how people judge websites.I have read countless number of articles that advise that you look up a blog’s Alexa ranking before accepting guest-posting offers.
I tend to agree with you about not placing all emphasis on Alexa ranking since there are so many variables. It’s great to know the factors that affect ranking and what to do or not to do for those who are really concerned about improving their blog’s ranking.
I am more focused on getting better and better every day, attracting new readers to my blog and developing relationships among fellow bloggers, new and seasoned bloggers alike.
I am looking forward to more reports from your experiments.
Hi Onyeka and welcome to my blog!
I’m so happy that you like the post. I like blog commenting and love to share my thoughts unplugged right from my heart. 🙂
I differ on the guest post criteria and on Aha!NOW any person can guest post as far as he or she is an active community member, irrespective of any rank or status.
Alexa ranking actually matter more if you want to attract advertisers to your blog because it is the only valid benchmark for them to compare your site to other sites and get an idea of the site traffic.
I’d say you’re going the right way and doing the right things by focusing on creating great content and developing relationships – these efforts will go long way.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and hope to see you around! 🙂
Hi Harleena,
what a great post about Alexa.
I was aware of many of your points, but you also enlightened me about some aspects of how the ranking works.
I know, from experience, that both PageRank and Alexa rank are two ways used by advertisers to measure your site and give you offers according to your stats.
Thanks for sharing, Harleena.
Some new things learned here. 🙂
Hi Erik,
I’m glad I could help you with the understanding of Alexa ranking.
Absolutely, Alexa rank is a good benchmark for the advertisers.
There’s nothing much new in the post except the mobile fact was indeed a revelation for myself too. Imagine how your Alexa will shoot if all the mobile visitors have the Alexa toolbar installed!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi, Harleena,
Thank you so much for writing about this topic!
The information you have shared is startling!
The author of one of the posts I came across went as far as to suggest that if you’re not ranking on Alexa, then think about shutting down your blog/website. I can only hope no one followed the suggestion.
I don’t have Alexa toolbar installed either on pc or on mobile. I’m not even sure if I want to install it. It sounds like a vanity tool after reading your post. I see nothing wrong with Google Analytics if none is accurate ‘why obsesses over any of them?’
It’s good to finally find out how the system (Alexa) actually works. I cared for 20 minutes about ranking after reading that discouraging post but now that I know more, it’s a closed chapter. I rather focus on improving my writing and connecting with readers.
Thank you (again) for this post! And the invaluable lessons: don’t believe everything you read without doing some (extensive) research.
Thanks. 🙂
Hi Priya,
I’m glad that I could help you with this post.
That was really a weird suggestion but probably blogger believes that blogging is useless unless you makes loads of money from it, so from that point of view, if you don’t have a good Alexa rank, you will not be able to attract advertisers.
If you don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed on the browser that you’re using to visit my blog, then you’re hurting my blog’s Alexa rank! 🙂 You only benefit more when OTHERS visiting your blog have the toolbars installed in their browsers, like I have.
GA stats are the best and you need no other stats. If your focus is on writing and relationships only then you don’t have to be concerned about any ranking or stats.
Thanks again and yes demonstrated experience truly helps to understand things better. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great rest of the week! 🙂
Hello Harleena,
Thanks for this insightful post and for doing the digging to clarify the Alexa ranking. I never knew that it only collects data from people who have installed the toolbar. I thought that the more traffic you get, the better your Alexa ranking. Good to know it doesn’t reflect your real traffic.
I used to be a little bit obsessed with stats like Alexa and Google Analytics. Luckily I realized this is not the most important thing. I am now focusing on getting subscribers for my blog. Think this is the best way to build engagement and make your blog popular and successful.
Thanks for this post!
Hi Bastiaan,
I’m glad I was able to clear the picture about Alexa for you through this post. Yes, it doesn’t really reflect your true traffic.
I’d say getting subscribers is good if you want to make money by selling something to your list, else you can make your blog popular by just focusing on blog commenting and social marketing, besides creating great content. Making the blog successful would however depend on your concept of success.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hello, Harleena..I am guilty of not been posting comment on your posts.Reasons would only be excuses.
To be honest with you, I have never bothered about rankings for simple reason that I don’t advertise on my blog.I write myself and a few of my followers.
Despite that,you covered me in first 30 men bloggers. It is still fresh in my mind.
Hi BK and nice to see you here!
It’s the present that matters most and am happy that you decided to visit my blog now. 🙂
Your reasons are very valid for not being concerned about Alexa. I included all the top of the regular men visitors in that list, and you were certainly among them then, and I too cannot forget that. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. Have a great rest of the week ahead! 🙂
I was wondering why my Alexa ranking isn’t improving for a while now. You article made some good points on Alexa for me.
My mobile traffic is really good these days and as mentioned by you those people might have not installed alexa toolbar on mobiles affecting the rank
Really Good Post 🙂
Hi Nikky and welcome to my blog,
This was a great revelation for myself when I did the research for this post – the mobile traffic is eventually taking down my site’s Alexa rank, or you can say is making it stagnant in spite of an increase in my total site traffic.
However, things will change when your mobile visitors will download apps that have the Alexa toolbar in them.
Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts. 🙂
Hi Harleena,
I used to look at my Alexa ranking all the time, thinking that it would change every few minutes. It was mostly because I wanted a way to measure success, and that and my stats from Google Analytics was how I started measuring it. Now, I’m not looking at Alexa anymore. It’s not that it’s not important, because it probably is, at least when it comes to advertisers. But, that’s not something I’m concerned with 🙂
– Jens
Hi Jens,
In comparison to the Google PageRank and the MOZ Rank, Alexa Rank is, you can say, like real-time because it changes on a daily basis, almost.
But you’re right that the measure of success changes for a person or even a blogger with time – initially bloggers are hooked on to Alexa and later understand that its the quality and relationships that matters most.
Alexa is certainly a good benchmark for advertisers but like you, I am too not really bothered about it as it fluctuates, rises, falls with your activities and time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena,
I’ve detached heavily from my Alexa rank because I’m devoting my creative energies to publishing the best content and comments possible. In any case, having a low Alexa helps you score primo ad prices and also impresses bloggers and readers.
Smart tips here.
I dropped my old blog’s Alexa to about 35K then it jumped. Not sure of the factors. My new blog is a baby; I haven’t checked my Alexa yet. It’s likely decent but I know I have room for improvement because Blogging from Paradise is a new kid on the block.
I feel doing the best job possible writing great posts, and connecting with pro bloggers to score the Harsh Effect, can boost your Alexa score quickly.
Create, connect, and learn those little tricks to manipulate the digits a bit in your favor.
Thanks Harleena, a really thorough post here.
I’ll tweet it in a bit.
Have a fun day.
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
What you are doing will eventually fetch you better Alexa rankings! It’s like the good karma that comes to you when you do good without thinking or asking for the good results. 🙂
If you’re focused on creating great content and relationships, you in fact are driving people to your blog. And since your focus is more on bloggers, they all have the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers.
There could be many factors responsible for your old blog’s drop in Alexa ranking – it could be higher site load times, disinterested visitors, not frequent posts, more of non-bloggers visiting your site, more of mobile visitors, and so on.
You’re going great with “Blogging from Paradise” and taking all the right steps from the beginning so I’m sure this baby blog will soon become a celebrity in no time! 🙂
And you’re right too – a better Alexa means better revenue through sponsors.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and this post too. Have a great day yourself!
Hey Harleena,
It’s been a while since i’ve been on your blog and you just created a lot of detail about the Alexa Rating.
Does it really matter to me? Well I’ve been going back and forth with it. I’ve been mainly focusing on Google Analytics more so than Alexa. But I don’t see a problem with not checking the Alexa.
I too, went on a break. Specifically two weeks off from blogging and as a result it has done some damage LOL.. But I’m back in stride again. My traffic went down. Alexa rating decreased as well as Google’s. In my case, I just haven’t been active but would like to figure out a way to keep the flow of traffic going whenever I take breaks.
But I think the best thing bloggers can focus more on are the comments and shares. These give you more of your true ratings. The Alexa and Google are tools to help you improve your blogs performance for your visitors using features such as the bounce rate and session time. But one thing I’m confused about between both alexa and google is that, for example the bounce rate is different from each of these analytical tools. It can be 20% in Google Analytics and 43% on Alexa. This one really baffles me!
Thanks for the share and I hope you’re having a great week!
Hi Sherman,
It’s good to know that you too went off on a blogging break and for about the same duration as me! It does do the damage to your Alexa ranking but you can regain with frequent blogging, as you did.
My blog’s Alexa rank in fact dived significantly after I resumed blogging, which was probably due to the higher site load times.
If you’ve a loyal readership, then you probably can sustain your site’s Alexa rankings even when you take a blogging break.
I’d say that bloggers need to focus more on their content and relationships because if they are better in that, they’ll have more visitors and that too repeat ones, and get more comment and shares too.
I agree that Google and Alexa stats help us to improve our sites for the visitors. However, both the stats may show different figures for the same heads as you mention. This is because Alexa only takes into consideration the Alexa toolbar visitors, which is only a part of the total traffic, which is considered by the Google Analytics.
So, your GA stats will always tell you the complete story and show you the exact picture, unless you get the certified stats from Alexa.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead yourself! 🙂
Hi Harleena mam
My site is 5 month old but still Alexa graph not showing me why? BTW Thank you for very informative Article.
Hi Ravikant,
It takes time for your site to show on the Alexa graph. You need to have a good amount of Alexa toolbar bearing visitors or general traffic to your site. I hope you’re doing the right things for that.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! 🙂
yes mam I can do it. my website is new so that no showing. Thank you for reply. Have a great day mam.
Wat a pain. This alexa thing is really driving alot of bloggers crazy. It makes some loose concentration on blogging and giving it to “Whats my rank today,” i think the best idea is to keep on blogging and allow alexa ranking to sort itself out. Thanks for you advise. It has kinda changed d alexa mentality of mine.
Hi Robinson,
What you say makes sense. If you are blogging in the way that you should, you’ll ultimately get the fruits of your success, that is a better Alexa rank. So, instead of concentrating on the rank, pay more emphasis on your blogging!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great rest of the week ahead! 🙂
Mam,
I got same problem… here… my alexa rank down… when i make faster in loading speed and pageviews i got it back again… this post is awesome and very helpful.. thanks
Hi Satya,
Glad to know that the improvement in your site’s speed helped regain the Alexa rankings.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! 🙂
This is a very detailed post. I know that advertisers look at your Alexa ranking to determine how well your blog is doing. I finally got my blog under 100k, it was a long journey but in reality it probably does not mean squat. Google is the major game player when it comes to getting traffic from search engines. My husband always asks me why I care about my Alexa ranking, I feel a lower Alexa ranking attracts companies to your site. This can be a good thing if you want to be paid for some of your work that you do.
Hi Christy,
Google is definitely the main sustained source of traffic for your blog. But I’m happy to know the progress of your blog’s Alexa ranking and you’re right that it is important to attract advertisers.
Three things matter a lot in raising the Alexa rank – frequency of posts, quality of content, and the social promotion of your posts. I’m sure you’re doing it all and will achieve better rank with time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great rest of the week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena,
What a historic post!! It would be recorded as the most informative and well researched post on this particular topic! Hats off to you Harleena…you are a genius!
I agree with Lisa, it IS so mind boggling for persons like us who don’t have much knowledge about the technical jargon. I have never cared to concentrate on Alexa or Google rankings. May be it is essential for those who are Pro-bloggers. I really read this lengthy post with great interest because it is revealing so much on so many points, which I must confess are Greek and Latin to me!
Thank you so much for enhancing my knowledge, I have tried my best to read it carefully but I have to read it once more to understand all the details thoroughly. By the way, how much time did you devote to write this post? 🙂 Have a nice week!
Hi Balroop,
You’re too kind but I’m not a genius…I just had too many experiences documented so probably that made the difference. But I gratefully thank you for your kind words. 🙂
More than the pro bloggers, the Alexa rank serves good to those who want to attract advertisers to their blog to make money. I’m sorry if I couldn’t make some parts of the post simpler, so please feel free to ask me anything anytime that you need to know!
I did put in a lot of time on this post, in fact I had to miss one of my scheduled post to get this right because this got too lengthy.
Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
This is a mind boggling post. You’ve done incredible research here Harleena and shared so much valuable information. Some of it is over my head though. I’ve heard of Alexa but haven’t really checked to see what my site status is. It’s obvious after reading this that I must pay attention to this. SIGH. I just love to write and blog and all these stats really get me bummed. I was on a blog break and so haven’t been here for a bit. I’ve been focusing on my writing and have missed my favorite bloggers. Thanks for this info Harleena. You are an inspiration!!
Hi Lisa,
You can always ask me things that you do not understand. Yes, I think if you want to make money with your blog and want to attract advertisers, it would certainly help a bit to have the Alexa toolbar visitors visit your blog.
Else, you needn’t be much bothered about Alexa. Just keep writing great stuff, author books, and be happy!
It’s good to have you back and hope you had a great time on your blog break. Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your thoughts. Have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena,
This is a fascinating article to me. I have been thinking about thiese analytics for a while now and wondering about their relevancy.
Personally, I don’t put much stock into metric sites like Alexa or Klout.
If I’m required to do something like have a bar on my browser to get a ranking and less than 30% of my visitors have it; then it’s a very skewed and imperfect score that is just not really useful in my opinion.
I’m more concerned about reaching new people, engaging with them on their blogs and social media, and making sure I acknowledge them on my blog and social media.
With that said, your post was very insightful and helpful to understanding the tool.
I hope you have a great week Harleena!
~ Don Purdum
Hi Don,
Yes, the stats you get through Alexa toolbar are skewed and in fact they too call it sampling of data. On the other hand, not having the Alexa toolbar on your browser makes not much difference to your own site but to the sites that you visit through that browser!
Site owners use the Alexa ranking for business purposes to attract advertisers because this is one criteria that they consider. But your philosophy of blogging is right and great, and it should ideally be that way. 🙂
I’m glad you found the post insightful and helpful. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena,
Since I’m not interested in advertisers on my site, it probably doesn’t really apply to me then anyway. Still, the article was insightful and I learned something new through it.
Thanks so much!
~ Don
There is A LOT of data in this post and I think it really comes down to one thing, a quote from the post itself: “So, even if your traffic is good, you might have a very low Alexa rank because those surfing your blog or site don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed…It is an indication of how popular it is among the web surfers who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers.” Since I am pretty sure not many people have the Alexa Toolbar installed since it is not exactly free. For this reason I hold zero interest in my Alexa ranking.
Hi Troy,
That pretty much sums it up.. and that’s the fact. Alexa traffic is a small part of your site’s total traffic.
While you’re right on one thing that not many people have the Alexa toolbar installed even in the form of plugins and browser extensions, the other correct fact is that the Alexa toolbar is completely free.
Only the certified metrics of Alexa is not free that gives you the stats based on your site’s total traffic.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great day ahead! 🙂
Yes, to be clear, you are correct, the toolbar is free and those interested can get it here- alexa dot com/toolbar
What a helpful and insightful post into the mysterious Alexa ranking. I never really understood Alexa ranking. I did not know there was a toolbar thing for it. I probably don’t have it haha. I try not to place value on it but it is cool when it increases.
I felt that I learned a lot from this detailed post. What did your husband to do your site to make it increase in speed so much? I ran your website through gmetrix website test and your yslow speed % is fantastic. It is definitely true that page view is related to site speed. People will click away if your site is too slow. Do you run your site on your own dedicated server?
The alexa change during your downtime on the site is an interesting phenomenon. I visited the site a couple of times during that period still, but it was always down hehe.
Hi Sebastian,
I’m happy to know that you could get insights and help with this post. Well, not having the Alexa toolbar on your browser might not make a difference to your own site, but will sure do for the blogs or sites you visit!
My husband Vinay installed a few plugins, scripts, and optimized the performance of a few others to make the difference in the site speed. Some of the suggestive steps are mentioned in the earlier site speed post on Aha!NOW as mentioned in the link on this post. As far as I know, Aha!NOW runs on a shared server on Hostgator.
Yes, the upward swing in the Alexa even when the site was on maintenance was really interesting as to how a dummy activity too can increase the site’s Alexa ranking!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Great post indeed Harleena,
I agreed 100% to all you said here and its as if we have same thought.
The truth is that I stopped paying much attention to Alexa rank awhile ago after I discovered some of the things you mentioned here.
Alexa can mislead sometimes if you’re not careful because even when you’re visiting your own site, it use to record it too as a visitor.
This post will be an eye opener to many because, you just revealed some hidden Alexa truths.
BTW: I didn’t know you’ve reverted back to wordpress commenting system, the one you were testing didn’t work out well?
Hi Theodore,
Glad you like the post and that our thought waves are at the same level!
Yes, your site stats can include your own visits and that can be the case in both of your stats, Google Analytics and Alexa.
Well, I don’t think I revealed any hidden truths but yes there are many facts that people are not aware of generally. The fact about the mobile traffic was an eye-opener one for me!
Regarding the commenting systems, I tried Jetpack and then the pure WP native commenting, and now I’m back to using the CommentLuv Premium plugin minus the CommentLuv feature.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hello Harleena,
This is indeed a long post, but it did address enough thoughts and back-minds.
At some point in time, my alexa raking was in the 25k position till i took my last year break but it did not affect my ranking till i started some few changes on my blog; like i stopped posting 2wice a week and i also stopped promoting my blog frequently like i do before due to time factor… so my alexa ranking dropped to 85k, though my traffic stat did not dropped. But after the pre-launch of my forum, it has gone down to 79k in just one day of promotion, why, because i got the chance to promote my blog in front of people that uses the Alexa ranking 🙂
Though i am still getting advertisers and sponsored post regardless my alexa ranking.
As you mentioned in your post, Alexa ranking base their rank on their toolbar….
Thanks for the mention dear friend and also, this is one incredible post.
Have yourself a wonderful week ahead…
Hi Babanature,
I agree that this became a long post, but am glad that you still find it useful.
I think your blog’s Alexa rankings dropped because you gave a blow to the two ranking criteria – daily unique visitors and pageviews. It’s clear that the more frequently you post, the better will be your blog’s Alexa rank!
Probably your forum visitors were mainly bloggers and that the forums were happening more frequently than the blog posts that enhanced the Alexa ranking. Yes, the promotion in the bloggers communities and groups would do more good for your blog.
It’s good to know that you’re getting money making opportunities irrespective of your Alexa ranking. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. Have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena
Wow, you really did your homework on this topic. Thank you for sharing your case study with us.
I knew the Alexa ranking plays an important part in the blogging world but I didn’t know the science behind it. I was one of those who thought it had as much pull as Google Analytics. I can rest easy now but I still look at my Alexa rank daily.
Yes you are right that at the end of the day it’s our posting and social activity and relationships with our audience that will make or break our blog.
Thanks again Harleena! Have a great new week!
Hi Corina,
Yes, I wanted to write such a comprehensive post since a long time and was collecting the data at every incident and experience with Alexa.
I don’t think there would be many bloggers who never look at their Alexa rankings, so that puts all of us in the same category. But alexa stats are not as authentic and absolute as the Google Analytics – I don’t think anything can beat the GA stats.
That’s it, it’s not the rank but the quality of your blog that builds the reputation. So, you’re on the right track girl! 🙂
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great rest of the week ahead!
Everything I always wanted to know about Alexa and more! You’ve outdone yourself here, Harleena. 🙂 Personally, I don’t worry about such things much and just follow my muse, although, I’m trying out Google Adsense and also installed Yoast’s SEO plug in. Haven’t even made $20 yet with the ads, but, it’s a year long experiment. Many bloggers are curious about Alexa and this pretty well covers everything. Great post!
Hi Debbie,
Ah, this would’ve been a better title to the post! 🙂
I think you’re going the right way and doing the right things. And it’s always good to do your own thing because that’s where happiness lies in.
If you need any help with your experiments, do let me know. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena
This is a monumental post about Alexa and I’m sure will put anyone’s mind to rest who’s worried about their Alexa ranking.
I do have the Chrome extension installed on my desktop but I don’t on my mobile phone. I don’t tend to do much surfing on my mobile which I know isn’t the trend but I find it quite cumbersome and not very easy to read things.
I can’t believe how easy it sounds to manipulate the ranking system. It kind of makes me think why would people bother about it in the first place. I haven’t placed any relevance on it for some time but I keep it on my browser just to see where a blog is ranked on Alexa out of curiosity.
I hadn’t realised that advertisers look at it as a way of choosing whether they’ll advertise on a particular site or not. I hope no-one tells them about your post!
Hi Tim,
Wow, your comment makes the post some sort of a historical wonder but having so many experiences with Alexa it was bound to be a lengthy post!
I really wanted to stop people from worrying over their bad Alexa ranks, and I just wanted to convey a message that fluctuations are okay in Alexa rankings.
The mobile revelation was a shocker to me too considering the amount of mobile traffic I get to my site, but then this fact also relaxed me with the thought that my blog deserved much higher ranking if people had the Alexa extension or toolbar on their mobiles.
I guess that’s more because of prestige issue that people try to manipulate Alexa rankings to their favor, and it all also depends on the company you keep!
Advertisers just needed one regularly updated and commonly used metric to compare sites and I think they found Alexa to be very handy and convenient to suit their purpose. I guess the advertisers have no choice but to depend on Alexa unless Google comes out with a ranking feature based on its Google Analytics!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Wow Harleena, it seems like you had searched a lot about alexa and critically analyze the factors affecting the alexa rank.
I’m glad you unveiled the true secret behind the rise and fall of alexa rank. You’ve made it pretty much cleared why there is importance of alexa toolbar to have a good alexa rank.
Generally it doesn’t have any concern with the traffic of our website but still it matters in the blogosphere as it give you edge over other websites if you have better alexa rank 🙂
Hi Vishnu,
I’m glad you like the post. I don’t think there’s much new that I’ve revealed in this post but I think it made a different impact with the documentation and proof along with the points.
Alexa rank does indicate one kind of a traffic to your blog, but its not the complete story. However, as you say, it still matters and gets you an edge over the others.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Have a great day ahead! 🙂
Did you just write a Bible?
I have never read any post on Alexa like this one Harleena. A lot of revelations. I like that you are sharing this from practical experience.
I was shocked myself when I saw my stats dropping so quick and right now at 22k. Most of my readers are bloggers who probably have the toolbar installed.
From a business point of view, some advertisers still give a lot of importance to these stats. I remember when my blog was above 30k, I lost a business simply because the advertiser wanted blogs below 20k.
Recently, I quickly sealed a deal because my stats were below 25k. So if this still encourages some clients to buy space, then there is need to lower the stats for those who want money from their blogs.
What I don’t recommend however is using any blackhat techniques. I like your advice not to be fake. I think smart advertisers will know it when your stats are fake. I know of a blogger whose stats are below 20k but other things about his blog are poor. I quickly understood that guy was in for some balckhat games.
Thanks for the shout out in this post and for sharing your experience. It’s always wonderful to learn from others experiences.
Do have a wonderful week ahead
Hi Enstine,
Not even an iota of a Bible.. this is just a normal post of a personal case study. It just became too long because of my so many experiences with Alexa rankings. 🙂
Blogging blogs can easily achieve high Alexa ranks, and you’re right that the rise in Alexa ranks for your blog is partly because of the Alexa toolbar bearing visitors but mainly due to your awesome helping and innovative content!
Not boasting but if Aha!NOW were to post twice weekly only on blogging, I’m sure it would have crossed the 20,000 barrier long back!
Yes, that’s the only point of view because of which people have to dance to the tunes of Alexa – advertisers. But on second thoughts, I think the fear of the Alexa rank dropping does good in a way that the blogger tries to improve content and incorporate user-centric strategies to better the blog!
If it takes to improve the quality of your blog eventually to make more money, I don’t think that’s a bad deal. But making Alexa a prestige issue and getting obsessive about it is going a bit too far, what do you think?
Of course, blackhat is a total no-no in any case of blogging..bloggers should wear only white hats. 🙂 Many advertisers ask for the Google Analytics stats and I think that’s the right approach.
I’m glad you like this post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and views on it. Have a great week ahead! 🙂
Alexa Rank is one of success factor for the blog.
Even if we take break for a week alexa rank increase and decreasing alexa rank is indeed an important task for the blogger.
I am working to decrease my alexa rank.
I must say impressive survey on the alexa rank.
Thanks for the share 🙂
>SK Lohar
Hi Shivkumar,
I’d say that the success factor for a blog would differ from blogger to blogger, but I’d respect your choice of Alexa ranking to define success for you.
Basically, your Alexa rank is based on the daily unique visitors and pageviews, so whatever you do to reduce or increase them, directly impacts the Alexa rank of your blog.
I’m glad you like the post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena
I must commend you highly for this investigative work [or should I say research] that you have done pertaining to Alexa’s Ranking systems and to get to the bottom of it all as it relates to your blog’s ranking.
The knowledge is great to have as I am sure that one day I will be looking back into the archives to refer to this same post and to put certain things into action as it relates to my blog.
The statement that you made in this article (see below)pretty much sums up the way I feel right now about analytics and all that stuff.
“Frankly, I’m not at all complaining because I’ve never cared all that much about Alexa Rank, Page Rank, and all those kinds of things. They keep changing ALL the time, just like Google!”
I keep on coming to your blog for the reason that the information that you share is empowering, and it inspires me to do more and to become more that who I am at this time. I have made the connecting because your blog has helped to understand much better certain aspects about my purpose in life. I come to your blog because through your words I have found an online mentor and someone who can keep me grounded in life and to stay on a path that is honest and trustworthy. It is helping to grow.I can go on and on as to why I come to your blog but I will be taking up too much time and space here so I won’t go any further about that.
I also love the community and enjoy sharing my thoughts etc. with others.
GREAT POST as always! Thanks for sharing it with us. Blessings!
Hi Yvonne,
Actually I knew I’d be writing this kind of a post one day so I was collecting the data since my blogging break days, or else it would not have been possible for me to document it like I’ve done in this post. So, you can say it’s a research on my own blog to find the answers to my own questions. 🙂
I think the last para of the post aptly summarizes what you should do to have a good Alexa rank or a successful blog. I’ve always said that you’ve a great blog and you just need the right people to know about it, and the rest happens on its own.
I’m so thankful and grateful for your so kind words and appreciation. I intently try to help others and I’m so glad that you find my efforts useful and helpful. You know, you just made my day! I believe we all can be teachers for others because we all have some special qualities, something unique to teach. So, I’m happy to be your online mentor and you’ll be mine when I learn from you! It’s a give and take mutual exchange to help each other grow, isn’t it?
About the Aha!NOW blog community, I’d only say that I’m blessed to have such community members and I’m grateful to them for their love and support.
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful thoughts. Please do not hesitate to ask any question anytime, I’m always here to help. Do have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena,
This is really an important post to all of us as bloggers!
Lot of info filled in and I am sure this will be a good guide to the people who are worried about their blog’s ranking, quiet often i do check this since i have installed this at my web browser and I am so glad to note that these day my rate at Alexa is improved a lot, and I just checked yours and I got this result: 29,635 Alexa Traffic Rank – India Flag 4,994 Traffic Rank india.
Great Going Harleena! Great Going.
Though i do check this, I am not aware about most of the thing you mentioned in this post. Thank you so much for the wonderful insight provided thru this post. Keep up the good work my dear friend Harleena.
May you have a great week ahead 🙂
Thanks again for this informative piece! 🙂
Best Regards
~ Philip
Hi Phil,
Glad you find this post important and I hope it helps you improve your blog’s Alexa rank too, though as you mention it is already increasing, which is very good.
It’s great that you’ve the Alexa toolbar installed on your web browser and thank for checking the rankings of my blog.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and information. Have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena 🙂
You made my 10 minutes good while reading the article or better say a long article. Great story telling style, I like it.
BTW, I’ve alexa toolbar installed and I’ll surely revisit your blog. 😉
Cheers, Shashank
Hi and welcome to my blog Shashank!
I’m glad you found the post worthy to spend your valuable time on it. Thanks for the appreciation. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for having installed the Alexa toolbar on your web browser! Hope to see you around and have a great week ahead. 🙂
Hello Madam Harleena,
The issue of Alexa raises lots of eyebrows with various bloggers having different perceptions about it.
Some of the view it isn’t all that important whiles others are of the different opinion.
I am trying hard as well to improve my alexa after I had moved my blog to 50k somewhere last year but taking a short break as well has seen my blog’s alexa languishing in the 120k.
One thing I have realised when it comes to improving alexa is writing about others as well.
You have shared some really interesting experience with us and I have pledged myself to improve my Alexa from today onwards with this post of yours as my guidance.
Please do have a great day.
Hi Emmanuel,
You’re right that there are mixed opinions about Alexa. Though most of us know that its stats may not be absolutely correct, but they’ve relative importance in the blogosphere and help us compare sites and check on the competition, besides helping to create a reputed profile.
Yes, blogging break does affect your Alexa rank adversely and you need to come back with an aggressive and intensive plan to bridge the break in continuity.
You bring an important point on the table – writing about others, that you really do. I agree it helps increase your reach.
I’m glad you find this post useful and I wish you all the best to improve the Alexa rank of your blog.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a great week ahead! 🙂
Wow Harleena,
You really did your homework here! Alexa scores don’t much matter to me personally. But I do get people emailing me to be guests on my blog because they seen I have a great Alexa ranking. I guess Alexa is something people check out about us.
When I changed my blog, my score went down a bit. So each time we make changes, it does effect Alexa. I was curious about this and checked it too. I read who was coming in from where and why. Just out of curiosity!
I know I have many mobile readers on my blog, so this is why I had to change it up so it could be mobile compatible. I was warned “Your Alexa scores will go down!” by other bloggers. But for me, I really don’t care.
The proof is in the pudding for me. I do get great readers like you on my blog. That is my focus. Write good content, engage with my readers and follow them back.
Doing this ever since I started and not paying attention to Alexa not even Google…
People tell me “I seen you on the first page of Google!” “You are all over the place Donna…” But I pay it no mind because it doesn’t benefit me at all. The people that try to come in from those places are non bloggers, or others who I don’t know and have niche sites that are selling something. Therefore, I cannot accept them on my blog.
To me organic traffic works. If I want to market, I will do so in so many other ways than on my blog. I see my blog as social proof. So when I do market my product, it is not to those I know, but rather to a target audience that don’t know me. Yes, they check out my blog and social standing. And that’s all good.
But I rather have great comments on my blog and being featured on other blogs as a proven status.
Thanks Harleena for doing all this research. I found it quite interesting.
-Donna
Hi Donna,
I’m so glad you like the post. I confess that I’ve put in a lot into this post. In fact, this post was supposed to be published few days earlier but I had to take some extra time to properly curate it. 🙂
Yes, Alexa rank has that myth or call it that reputation of a star! Not many people really think about the basis or criteria of these rankings. But then it’s great to have it and then experience its good effects, isn’t it?
Of course, Alexa is the only stat that people can see to evaluate a blog, because PR is sort of dead and not everybody checks out the MozRank, what else is left as a metric to compare sites?
My blog’s Alexa rank too went down when I switched from Blogger to WordPress, but then it quickly regained its old position and climbed up fast. But yes, all changes have an affect on the visitor behavior and thus the Alexa rank of the site.
It’s good to have mobile compatible blog these days as the mobile traffic is on the rise. Aha!NOW has a responsive theme so it works on most of the hand-held devices. However, not all web browsers on the hand-held devices have the Alexa toolbar in any form of widget or extension, and that’s the biggest worry and loser of the Alexa rank.
However, I agree with you that ultimately its about the quality of your blog, and the kind of readership. The stats and metrics can show whatever, but we can recognize the true value and keep our focus there.
Yes, you get all sorts of visitors through the organic search and those are very different from the ones that you developed relationship with over time. A balance of such audience actually works good for the blog.
You’re right – it’s good to be known for quality than quantity, repute becomes more valuable than the rank, isn’t it?
Thanks again for your so valuable comment and quality thoughts that enhance this post. Do have a wonderful week ahead! 🙂
Great article Harleena, very well documented.
Your site is loading in around 3.3 sec with BuddyPress installed, I believe you are a winner because it creates lot of issues as far as loading time is concerned.
I remember the discussion about removing CommentLuv during Harsh’s interview post, it’s a good move to remove it. It’s doesn’t really create any long term value.
Hi Dhiraj, welcome after a long time!
Thanks for testing the speed of my blog and am so happy that its loading fast at your end!
Oh, you remember that post? Yes, I followed Harsh’s suggestions, though I was wanting to do that for a long time and I had indicated that in my blog survey too at the end of last year.
Well, presently I’m still using the CommentLuv plugin minus the Luv feature activated.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and views. Do have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hi Harleena Mam
You said it right Alexa traffic stats is not right at all. For me also Alexa say my traffic from Google is around 4.40% but according to analytic my traffic from Google is more than 30%.
Alexa rank are more focused by advertisers as Page rank update takes some time, due to which many bloggers try to use black hat method to decrease their rank suddenly which lead them to Google Penalty.
Hi Suprabhat,
Alexa might be good as a relative indication of traffic but absolutely not as an accurate source of traffic of a site.
Yes, I guess that’s one reason why advertisers prefer the Alexa rank, though they do also have the Moz Rank as an alternative.
Usage of the black hat methods are not suggested in any aspect of blogging, because sooner or later you’re going to pay for it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and views. Have a great week ahead! 🙂
Hey Harleena,
Nice article, i don’t care about Alexa ranking but sometimes advertisers consider it as an important factor before paying and my blog got rejected 3 times because of Alexa ranking even though i sent traffic proofs to the advertisers. Well, now my blog ranking is too awesome and no advertisers can reject my blog 😉
According to me Alexa ranking is some kind of a bot thing and most of the deserving people aren’t getting their rank improved because they don’t have the toolbar installed on their browsers which is so frustrating.
Thanks for writing.
-Siraj
Hi Siraj,
Nice to know that you think like me. Not really obsessive about the Alexa rank of the blog but then caring just enough because the advertisers do.
It’s heartening to know that your blog Alexa ranking is good now and that advertisers are loving it.
I think it would’ve been better if Alexa ranking were based on a bot, then the entire web would’ve been its playground. But probably that way is not possible to collect traffic stats of a site.
You’re right that there are many blogs and sites that unfortunately do not get their deserved Alexa rank just because much of their visitors do not have the Alexa toolbar bearing widgets on their browsers.
Thanks for sharing your views. Do have a great week ahead! 🙂