How do you read Alexa ranking correctly?

[imagerage]

I currently have an Alexa ranking of 5,255,398

In the detailed traffic, I see:
Today: 40,950
1 wk. Avg.: 183,760
3 mos. Avg.: 5,255,398

My questions are, is the today my actual rank? My site just started a few days ago, why does it have a 3 months average?

Anyone know?

[treeline]

Every site has a three month average. Yours is just very low because you didn't exist for most of the period, therefor finishing last.

Alexa numbers are hard to read accurately, as they are easily manipulated. Just your own personal use of your site can generate the rankings shown. If you set up a script, well, you could get great numbers. Not real, but look good.

With less popular sites, who happens to have the toolbar installed that visits makes all the difference in your rankings. Wild variations occur.

If most people in your industry don't use Alexa, AND you don't, you can get a "sort of" look at traffic from Alexa. If you're using Alexa, just launched a site, and have been error-checking and proofreading it, I would completely discount the figures shown. They're probably you.

[imagerage]

Sounds reasonable, it is very easily manipulated I guess. But don't the toolbar counts traffic based on unique hosts only?

[treeline]

No, they count number of toolbar users visiting, and number of pages visited, and weight both about equally. So one or two people checking a lot of pages can really move things.