miss_understood - 10:43 pm on Jan 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

Could Google be using Alexa's traffic stats as a weighting factor in the new SERPS?

I'm not suggesting that Google's results are listed in order from high to low traffic; rather, in the spirit of a points system, Alexa traffic is now highly weighted. For my industry, this would neatly explain the disappearance of all the little niche sites (spot-on content, but low traffic) in favor of big news, directory and mega-shopping sites (barely relevant content, but high traffic). So, the little mom-and-pop shop selling fuzzy blue widgets gets points for content, but loses Google ranking due to their 1,234,567 Alexa rank; while the BBC article mentioning the words fuzzy, blue and widgets somewhere on the page skyrockets to the top by virtue of their #26 Traffic Rank.

For the post-Florida top 20 results in my industry, no conclusions can be drawn based on backlinks, OOP, or even content; there is always an exception. However, most sites are in the top 100,000 Alexa ranks, and none of the sites are below #350,000.

Does anyone else find this to be true in the SERPS they are analyzing? Any input is greatly appreciated!