Do Alexa Ratings have any effect on Google or Search Engine Ranking?

[ProductivePC]

Hello, I have been reading in a few places on the Internet that Alexa Ratings have an effect on search engine ranking. That they are utilizing the alexa ranking in their placement.

Is this true? Has anyone heard anything about this?

Thank You

[Monkscuba]

One has to doubt it. I heard that if you wear odd socks on Tuesdays it gives you a boost too.

About Alexa, while we're on the subject. A couple of months ago our site had Alexa rank about 1 million, though we have more visitors than ever and are quite happy thank you. I read here that it was quite easy to manipulate the ranking to a certain extent. So, I installed Alexa toolbar and try to look at our website a few times per day, just on one computer. Our rank is currently 197,000. Whoa! We even hit the top 100,000 for a day. From one toolbar.

I guess the ranking is not worth too much unless in the top few thousand. Now, when are Google going to do a similar thing? Given the number of people who use google compared to Alexa, the numbers might just mean more.

What do y'all think?

[cbpayne]

Alexa rankings are crap and meaningless.
They are not used by search engines for rankings.

[ProductivePC]

Okay, I didn't think so and I know about the contraversy with the Alexa rankings however I had to ask because I am seeing this more and more that search engines were taking that into consideration. Where else better to ask than in here. :)

[ProductivePC]

Now, in retrospect, yes I know the alexa toolbar ranking is far from perfect but it is just another figure to go off of. There is not much that is perfect out there. Alexa only records you once per day going to a website. The increased result was not solely from your 1 alexa bar. It more than likely had to do with the increase of your traffic especially if you are actively link exchanging. Most of the people that you trade with will have the alexa toolbar installed therefore increasing your ranking.... that doesn't do much for sales directly but then again, that is not the subject :)

Is there a better way to tell how much traffic you are getting compared to your competition or how much traffic a website gets if you are going to consider advertising with them?

This is just here for anyone reading this that would like to know how to read the alexa rankings.
The alexa rating scale is read from 1 - 5,000,000
1 being TONS and TONS of traffic from people that have the alexa toolbar installed on their computer
5,000,000 being little or no traffic from the people that have the alexa toolbar.

[outrun]

After I completed a website for a client I put the alexa toolbar on 5 of there work machines they did not use the internet for surfing much, but I did set there website as there home page, in went from 0 to 10 sub 50,000 in a month, With a traffic indicator to boot. I love emails from web promtions bragging about there alexa ranking.

regards,
Mark

[ProductivePC]

LOL... I get them too for the link exchanges but the ones I get are the ones that believe those are actual visits to their website. "My website recieves 2,000,000 people per month. My alexa rating says so."
LOL. But hey, we all started somewhere.... nobody was born with the knowledge they possess :) although some might want you to believe that... lol

Yes, I know that it is not the best thing in the world however I don't know of anything better out there so I continue to use it to judge whether or not I would like to advertise as well as it is one of the factors we take into consideration for considering a link exchange with a website. (amonst many other things)

[Monkscuba]

"nobody was born with the knowledge they possess"

and some unfortunately haven't got the brains they were born with...

My experiment with the Alexa toolbar (we are up to 188,000 now) came about after one local competitor sent emails to many local businesses about link exchanges and proudly saying he had the best Alexa rank of any of them, so they should link to him. Our increase IS due to 1 toolbar on my computer, we are not involved in any big link program, no more than usual over the last couple of years.

It's fairly meaningless but so long as some people believe it means something then it costs nothing to increase your own Alexa rank. Now all I need is to set the homepage on all machines in our local internet cafe...

[kepagk]

It all must be kept relative.

It's pretty much useless if you expect accuracy for a snapshot. I wouldn't go out bragging about my ranking or take what anyone says about their's too seriously. However...
If you look at the Alexa ranking for your competitor(s) OVER A PERIOD OF TIME, there IS a value added. I use it as a goal to acheive and pass - a reference. In relation to this, if my competitor's ranking is exaggerated, what do I care? I'm benefitting by a higher standard. It does give you a GENERAL feel for the traffic your competitor receives on an ongoing basis.

[0pn1]

Had to reply to this topic because the Alexa ranking is what I've been trying to get - as of late.

I have a website(a new search engine) that is just starting out. Even though I use new and different technologies I'm still competing against a myriad of other search engines.

Some of those directories I'm listed in rank by Alexa rating so therefore to receive a better listing(in that directory) I need a better Alexa rating. Example a front page listing would require me to be in the top 50 search engines-I'm currently 51 so not on the front page.

As far as manipulating results go? I'm sure an good hacker would have no problem doing that. And in the world of dog eat dog SEO I see why people would want to do it but I do believe, IMHO, Alexa is one of the best ranking tools on the net.

[chrisnrae]

Opn1 - easily taken care of. Get someone you know to install it and set your engine as their homepage. Get a few more people to do it and you'll be in the 40's in no time.

Alexa isn't likely to share the same "general demographics" as SE users and is innaccurate. It is also more easily manipulated - to use Alexa data as a portion of the algo wouldn't only not make any sense, but it would be irresponsible on many levels by any SE that made it a part of it's algo.

[ProductivePC]

Well this is interesting. The original reason for my post is because a while back someone sent me to a website that made all these claims about alexa traffic and search engines using the alexa ratings in their algorithm. This website sold a program for $49.00 that claims to fake page rank. It gets you a better alexa rating by sending alexa counted traffic to your webiste. Well, the site was the makings of someone just trying to make a buck, so I disregarded and blew it off, however, I started seeing more and more websites making that claim that were not selling anything hence why I brought the question up here after a few months.

Now, here is the interesting part. What was originally sent to me was a search term in google for Fake Page Rank and the number one website was the one to make all of these claims. Well, that website is no longer to be found at all within the Google index. Could this be because Google got P.O. and took them out OR because they didn't want anyone finding out about that piece of software on their network?

The website was [snip] (I personally would not purchase it, but I figured I would throw it out there for people to look at. It looks like they have a free trial or something)

Anyway, Thank you for all of your feedback everyone. I love this forum.

[edited by: pageoneresults at 10:32 pm (utc) on Sep. 10, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed URI Reference - Please Refer to TOS [/edit]

[greenleaves]

The Alexa traffic rating itself is not used. But I seem to remember reading that Alexa related sites are taken into acount by google. I think I saw it on the google papers released not long ago. I also saw a thread here about it, but don't remember which.

Anyway, I think jumping on one foot is going to increase your rankings more than that sofware.

[ProductivePC]

LMAO! That is why I blew it off!

[0pn1]

chrisnrae-well I'm not really into this to manipulate my listings in fact if you have to manipulate anything to try and get your site listed where it should be. then to tell you the truth that SE is not good enough.

And for those counting out ALEXA-As for me I have been studying search engine technologies for about 6 years(thus the reason I created a search engine). To count OUT any technology that is at your fingertips(including Alexa) may be bad in the long run.

Another thing with Alexa toolbars is very few people actually have them installed. Alexa should scrap the toolbar and have webmasters install a counting script to properly rank the web.

[angiolo]

Probably there is ways to manipolate Alexa ranging, as you can manipolate any engines...

I think that Alexa is a good indicator; you should use it with other tools too ( Google Page Rank, linkpopularity etc.).

[DatabaseDesigner]

Hello all,

Just signed in and hit this thread...

I have had some suspiscions about the Alexa ranking for some time, so I started my own investigation. It's been going on for nine months, really, but yesterday I published the results of my experiment...

BTW: The experiment is still running, and you could participate. The last 32 hours, since published, only memebers from Allan Gardyne's Associateprograms.com and SiteSell's forum have been invited to read the results.

I thought that people here at this forum might be interested as well, and it seems I was right.

Now remember, I am not into IM marketing or any kind of related stuff. I run a site about database design, but as a Webmaster i naturally has an interest in exploring what is good for my business.

Best,
Alf

[edited by: pageoneresults at 10:28 pm (utc) on Sep. 10, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed URI Reference - Please Refer to TOS [/edit]

[ProductivePC]

sorry pageone, I forgot all about the TOS. with the URL's

[synthium]

As someone said earlier, Alexa ranking is simply another tool to determine visit composition to a web site and compare it statistically to others. Its not a stupid tool.
It is about as accurate as anything would be from the outside. Besides, who would want their competition knowing exactly what they were doing?

*grin*

[lysglimt]

The Alexa ranking for us is in the 8000.
One of our competitors with many times the number of users is in the 4000.

An email service is heavy use, so it does bring the Aleaxa ratings up.
However I have not spotted any measurable benefits from a good Alexa rating.I would love to know what to look for.

Hans J Lysglimt

[edited by: agerhart at 8:23 pm (utc) on Sep. 29, 2004]
[edit reason] removed company name and URL per TOS [/edit]

[Virtualpixels]

Googles and Alexa have both updated. My Google ratings are high than my Alexa ratings. Yahoo also updated recently which gives me a high ranking.

www.virtualpixels.com