Very cool resource

[NJLawman]

I pick your brains enough. Here is something I came across.

Alexa has a toolbar you can download which shows a ton of information about each site you visit ranging from how many sites link to them to their Internet ranking. Some of you may already know about it, but for those who don't, check it out. It is a great way to research your competitors. You can get it right from [alexa.com...]

[Chris_R]

I wouldn't use their toolbar, but still use their site - you can check any url - just be replacing the example.com:

[alexa.com...]

[Brett_Tabke]

NJLawman, do a site search for about a hundred threads on alexa.

Pretty much anything below 5000 is a declining scale of accuracy. anything below 10k should be ignored.

The top 3000 or so is pretty dead accurate. Certainly the most accurate public set of site stats on the net.

[JasonHamilton]

alexa rankings come from those who have the toolbar installed.

I had the toolbar installed on two computers, and I browse my own site with it. Since I visited my own sites every day, my alexa ranking went to the 12,000 range, and stayed there for months.

When I uninstalled it and quit using it for a long time, my ranking went to 40,000 range.

Quite simply, the ranking numbers are worthless. The only thing it can really tell you is how many people with the alexa toolbar visit a site, and even then it's basically a guestimate.

If you're a webmaster and want to impress someone who has the toolbar, I guess installing it might be useful, other than that....