Alexa, The Necessary Evil
Posted on May 2nd, 2008 by Cronus under Traffic
Chances are if you are a part of the active internet world, you check various site’s alexa rankings from time to time. Alexa rankings show your sites traffic versus other sites all over the internet. Of course Yahoo! and Google are usually on the top, but if your site is anywhere in the top 100,000 your still getting pretty decent traffic. The lower your number the more traffic you have.
Alexa’s rankings have been questioned multiple times and several webmasters won’t even recognize Alexa as a legitimate ranking source. All of the traffic details are brought in from alexa’s toolbar and that is not a very reliable source as most people online do not use this toolbar, or have even ever heard of it.
They have recently changed their ranking system to show even better statistics. While most sites alexa ranking went down, people are still very happy with the change as it is now reflecting the correct statistics. There is still tons of controversy over this system but it is the most trusted by webmasters all over the world, and if you aren’t looking at it, you should.
Alexa has it’s ups and downs, it’s bad and good sides, but altogether it helps webmasters get a view on where their site stands. This is why we tag it “The Necessary Evil”. While not completely accurate, and sometimes just plain wrong, for the most part it gets the job done and it is the standard for all webmasters. If you don’t like it, deal with it, Alexa is here to stay.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
This is a very interesting post. I found it to be quite informational. I hope you don’t mind me posting a link to this post in my blog I just start.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Interesting. I consider myself fairly active online, but I was unfamiliar with the change in Alexa rankings. Thanks for the update.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
ditto Stacey. I didn’t know it had changed. Good to know, I was one of the disenfranchised and had stopped looking (depressing), now that I know they have changed for the better I will re-evaluate.