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I know there isn't THAT much difference between PR6 and 5, but this is contradictory in nature and seems odd to me.
There is a relationship between PR and traffic in that a high home page PR, if the site is properly cross-linked internally, will distribute to the internal pages of a site.
But this relationship introduces a lot of variables. Google's PR is not particularly useful for guessing site traffic. Alexa has its quirks too, but for overall site traffic, the Alexa ranking is a better comparative indicator than PR.
The "comparative" value of Alexa is most useful when looking at the same site over a period of months or years. Comparing one site to a completely different site is less useful.
Just think of Smiley Central (i'm sure you've seen those ads everywhere) I'm looking at them now and they have a PR 5 with an alexa rating of 719.
This should really have said ... while Alexa is based on traffic to the entire site from those who have the Alexa toolbar installed ... which is why Alexa data is meaningless as this is such a biased sample. "
Second, Alexa ranking is measured by Traffic, where as PR is measured in links.
Third, PR is just a small factor for Google, where as for Alexa, that is the only thing made by them.
So you can't really compare 2 different things, Rating vs Ranking.
Sid
Dave
I have been getting Alexa visits recently. Is it bots or people? If people I might get back into the Open Directory but that is hoping. I had to change URLs seven months ago and cant get them updated in ODP.
Alexa is tied in with the way-back-machine, which is likely what you saw crawling your site.
80.186.157.xx - - [01/Aug/2003:16:51:58 +0300] "GET /Autot/Autokoulut/ HTTP/1.1" 200 15815 "http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=grazy+finn=" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; K1500DUG FI; Alexa Toolbar)"
I had to change URLs seven months ago and cant get them updated in ODP.
Only seven months? Come back in 2 years............................maybe :o)
My case study: Visit a website that has no content, is not indexed by google, and has no incoming links. Visit the site every day for 3 months using 3 different IP addresses, all with the Alexa toolbar enabled.The result: The worthless no content site with no links had an Alexa rank of 16,000.
Conclusion: Use your imagination.
That's actually 100% false. I notice you didn't mention where the site originally was before you decided to do your "test." And important detail, definately.
Three different Alexa users visiting a site everyday for three months will not get those type of results you mentioned.
Alexa is an *estimate* of a websites traffic popularity. It's not very good but it's the only one of its kind (that i'm aware of) and it's an ok tool to give someone an idea of a websites traffic.
PR measures the popularity of a website based on other sites linking to it. Alexa measures the popularity of a website based on its estimated traffic.
A website can have a great PR and very little traffic.
Naturally, if thousands of people run this same test, the ranking will differ as there can only be one website ranked on alexa at a given number.
This should really have said ... while Alexa is based on traffic to the entire site from those who have the Alexa toolbar installed ... which is why Alexa data is meaningless as this is such a biased sample. "
You could make a similar statement about any ratings service (online or offline), because they all use sampling to determine audience size--whether they're doing it with software installed on a PC, a box attached to a TV, or telephone polls during "Ratings Week."
I would not agree its 100% false - I was able to get my 3 sites from >1 000 000 to <40 000 by just installing the Alexa toolbar and visiting them each day (sometime 2-3 times a day) from the same computer for 2 months! .... and yes my traffic stayed the same for that period.
This is Research Methods 101 - the Alexa sample is biased and self selected (biased towards techno people and the sites they visit). Most rating services use samples that are randomly selected from the target population and statitisically tested to see if the sample matches the demograhics (eg age; gender) of the target population, before any conslusions are drawn. The sample of Alexa uses would not come close to matching the demographics of all internet users --> bias.
Alexa is fun, provides some information, but it has to be acknoledeged for what it is.
<edit>
I just realized Alexa is good for something - reading the site comments:
alexa.com/data/details/reviews?q=webmasterworld&url=webmasterworld.com
</edit>
Actually it is 100% true. I told someone about Alexa. He installed the toolbar. His site went from about 60,000 to about 15,000. 74% of the visitors to his site went to site.com/private/*... his own password protected area.
Three daily users can easily bring any site into the top 20,000, no problem at all.
Ya, they have a reported 2 fold installation base that Google does. So, if you think that of Alexa, you must really have to rethink what PR is.
So, alexa, should go to a 1-10 or 1-100 ranking system and then you will think as much of it as you do of Google?
Alexa beats every ranking system on the net hands down. It is without-a-doubt the best available public measure of website quality there is out there today. no doubt.
> Three daily users can easily bring any site into the top 20,000
And just one link can put a site pr8. What's the question?
Thus in theory, you should be able to acquire a 16,000 alexa rank with 3 ips, loading a page once per day.
I can't say for sure, since my test used the 3 ips at random times to visit the website.
If you had access to a few class C's, and wrote a little script to use different IPs from the same computer to load up your webpage using the alexa toolbar, I have no doubt you can rank within the top 100.... that is, assuming there is no human review on alexa's side to catch the abnormality, and no software checks to catch such tricks.
It reminds me of the Simpsom episode where Springfield started to pay a "Bear Tax" to keep away any rougue bears.
Hey guys! I have this great new product called "Elephant Spray" just one spay each day will ensure no visits from stray Elephants :o) Don't laugh, it works and it's better than any other "Elephant Spray" out there!
A website being visited once per day by ONLY 3 people who happen to be alexa users is not enough to get that website ranked at 16,000. (You don't know who else is visiting the site.)
I have Alexa installed, as does many webmasters. If this theory were true than _every_ site we visit on a daily basis would already be 66% closer to being ranked within the top 20,000? (Our hit, plus the webmasters own hit)
Listen to what you're saying. It's false.
Alexa can be manipulated, definitely. It's flawed, sure. But it's the best at doing what it does and it can be a useful tool at estimating a websites traffic.
So, my Elephant spray is the best at what it does. If you know of a better product please let me know.
Listen to what you are saying, e.g. I use system that is flawed and can be manipulated to estimate Website traffic because it's the best!
Dave
Alexa however attempts to offer a UNIQUE and useful service. It can be manipulated just like any other statistical program. But there are very few people wasting their time purposely trying to manipulate Alexa rankings.
It's not completely accurate, but Alexa is still useful at getting an estimate of a websites traffic.
I don't quite understand the negativity towards the service? If you don't like it, don't use it. I happen to think it's useful despite the flaws.
