Alexa Redirect Trains

[ThePrizeBlog]

I have recently tried using the technique of redirecting a link through Alexa, to my site. My site is http://theprizeblog.com and the link has become http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?theprizeblog.com. Now many people I know have argued just how useless Alexa rankings, and Google page ranks really are. I cannot disagree with that, but for sake of argument, wouldn't it be better to have a lower Alexa ranking and a higher Google page rank just for the heck of it? Especially since many monetization sites, like text-links.com still rely on these ratings. If I want my site to have sponsors, I should try to have the best rankings as possible.

I want to know how everyone feels about it, thoughts, idea, all that stuff.

[LennyP]

Alexa traffic is totally meaningless and easily skwewed. Let me use my general directory as an example. When I first launched it I was giving away free listings. As a result, for the first several weeks my weekly average was consistently in the top 100,000. A few days after hard promotion it peaked around 20,000. Before my site was even 3 months old it cracked the top 100,000. Since then I've gone paid, but added much more content. My traffic has consistently grown as my Alexa rating has fallen.

How do this happen? Alexa is typically used by webmasters, typically the type which are looking for easy ways to manipulate rankings. When my site was giving free links these webmasters were all over it.

Non-webmasters almost always never use Alexa. They have no reason to. Because of this, sites of a non-webmaster orientation recieve very little Alexa traffic. When they rank high, it is because they recieve such a huge amount of traffic and a small percentage of their visitors happen to be webmasters. This small percent of a large enough number allows them to rank. Sites with 10 times my traffic still rank lower.

Besides not reflecting traffic very accurately, Alexa is also very manipulated. All you have to do is install the tool bar and visit your site. Get more people to do the same for you and you or on your way to the top.

[Bloggeries]

Basically Alexa calculates the top traffic sites based on exposure to their toolbar. ~7% of internet users have the toolbar so as you can assume the scores are very skewed and it's easy to maniuplate your rankings.

Basically yesterday and day before I have received ALOT of traffic for usual standards YET 83,142379 that was my alexa score on the day. My 3 month average is lower at ~62,000. What I'm getting at is some days I have LOTS of traffic and a low alexa, other days I have low traffic and a high alexa.

It's all dependant on how many of those users a) had the toolbar installed and b) of those users how many pageviews did each load up?

Now to the manipulation. Say everyone on this forum started using the toolbar when they visited this site. This site would skyrocket. I'm sure alot of people do manipulate it. The fact it can be so easily manipulated makes it lose its weight IMO. I still check it though lol.

[ThePrizeBlog]

Its ironic that the sites that talk about manipulating your rankings, are usually the same sites that have high rankings. Similarly I think even a site that faked an offer to increase rankings would get an insane amount of traffic.

[Webtools]

Howsoever meaningless and skewed Alexa may be, it is still important because many of the monetization and affiliate programs depend upon that for calculating the compensation.

[Bloggeries]

Originally Posted by Webtools

Howsoever meaningless and skewed Alexa may be, it is still important because many of the monetization and affiliate programs depend upon that for calculating the compensation.

Very true, also the people who use alexa as a benchmark for comparison when advertising most often have no clue that it is so easily manipulated either. Therefor to more advanced groups alexa doesn't mean much but I remember when I first got on alexa I thought it was the end all be all and I was around 2,000,000 and would look at say 346,000 and be like wow thats' awesome, now I'm at 62,000 and realize that it makes no sense. Some days I have insane traffic but a poor alexa, other days moderate traffic and an awesome alexa. All depends who comes with the toolbar, also since webmasters are more inclined to install something like that; lots of webmaster related sites rank really well.

[Mike7089]

My blog Brain Stimulant, has been getting an alexa traffic rank of 145,273 for the past week. I've even "supposedly" broken the 100,000 mark on several days. These ranking numbers are way too high, though. I only get like 200 visitors a day. I know other websites that get 10,000 visitors a day, but they have a worse alexa ranking than I do. A lot of my traffic is coming from entrecard, so that could be the reason. They may be more likely to have the alexa toolbar installed.

All of these rankings can be manipulated, so its best to look at multiple markers.