Forum Moderators: phranque
A composite traffic ranking is shown on the toolbar when you visit a site. Clicking on the Alexa rankings number, will take you to information about the site you are visiting.
I wanted to bring up the topic because I feel the traffic measurement by the Alexa toolbar is one of the most powerful and accurate measures of internet statistics I've seen yet.
Many of the other net ratings systems rely on sampling a group of selected users. Often, those users put something in between their machine and the internet that tracks what sites they visit. That is highly accurate for those people, but the sample rates are so low that the data is suspect when applied to the world wide audidence of the net. Some of the net ratings firms use sample groups of only one thousand to two thousand surfers. I feel they are statistically invalid. If it were anyone but the companies behind those ratings numbers, they would be discarded as noncredible.
The Alexa toolbar on the other hand, has a reported install base of several million. That is a significant group of people. Even so, Alexa does warn that certain sites and sectors of the net could be under reported or over reported. Factors such as Alexa's own site where a high percentage of users will have the tool bar installed, or linux heavy sites where few will have the toolbar installed will be over or under reported.
In the past, the Alexa Toolbar has been a source of controversy. Much of that upset has died away with the acceptability of tools like Netscapse "What's Related", the Google and Yahoo toolbars. When you visit a site, the url is transmitted to the homebase in order to return the site information.
Alexa is also connected with Archive.org [archive.org] (Wayback). You can click on a button to see the history of any page.
There is also an "auto site suggestion" while you surf. The Alexa Toolbar Related Links are provided on the toolbar to related sites. I think this is one area where they need to do more work. It has to be a fairly high traffic site in order to become accurate on the suggestions.
The search feature of the alexa toolbar is powered by Google and can be installed at the same time as the Google bar. I think the traffic figure is better at determining site quality than Googles page rank. But taken together, it is a powerful synthesis of data available while surfing.
Alexa Info for webmasters [pages.alexa.com]
Download and install the Alexa toolbar: [download.alexa.com...]
From what Ive seen having Alexa running involves 3 to half a dozen extra queries every time you go to a new page and slows down page loading and adds to memory. Thats the reason i took it off as all my surfing is dial-up and the speed/memory hits were very noticeable.
I guess many people actually try it, then de-install it, as the trade off on imformation is not THAT much for the mainstream user, though it maybe for the marketer. After all, most people like to make up their own mind about a website initially, rather than using a second opinion like Alexa, unless they are quite serious about evaluating the "credibility" of the site.
Even i get worried about installing a "toolbar" or any program. And even though the Alexa installation seems idiot-free, most non-web professionals are very wary of downloading and installing software, especially with the virus warnings about.
At present I do doubt that it can become mainstream for these reasons, as well as several others that have already been covered.
Really the only way a toolbar can become mainstream is it is automatically installed and enabled in IE, Netscape/Moz. Mac versions, and maybe even Opera and other browsers with reasonable market share.
