A few months ago, I wrote an article about how terribly inaccurate the Alexa page ranking service is.
Although my opinions on the matter haven’t changed. I’ve seen a recent upswing in articles telling readers what tips and tricks they can use to boost their rankings. When it comes right down to it, there is only one trick that will legitimately work for improving your rank. First, let’s debunk the rest of these myths.
Things That Will Not Improve Alexa Rank
1) Use Alexa Redirection Whenever You Can
Not only is this myth completely false, but it’s also completely dated. Way back in the day Alexa had a system that allowed this url structure:
http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?yourwebsite.com
It was believed that if you gave people your Alex re-direct link as opposed to your normal link it would improve your ranking. I don’t think this was ever true but it’s a moot point now because the entire redirect.alexa.com sub-domain has ceased to be.
2) Install Alexa Traffic Widgets On Your Website
Before I tell you all about how this is not going to help your Alexa rank whatsoever, let us take a minute and relish on how absolutely ugly these widgets are.
You can find them here: http://www.alexa.com/siteowners/widgets
I absolutely, 100% guarantee you that placing one of these big, ugly, slow-to-load widgets on your website displaying your ( most likely ) very poor Alexa ranking will be a determent to your website.
Alexa has come right out and announced publicly that their traffic widgets do not increase rank. I say that even if they did, they aren’t worth having on your website.
3) Use Some 3rd Party / Non-Related SEO Service To Improve Rank
While the simple concept of Better Website = Better Rank holds true in this scenario, don’t fall for the bait. With thousands of people desperately looking to improve their Alexa rankings, low-down money-grubbing publishers haven taken the opportunity to try and sell you whatever affiliate software is currently paying them the most money. While investing in a legitimate SEO firm is almost always a good idea for a website, do your research first and don’t expect some fly-by-night service to improve your Alexa rank.
A Warning About Improving Alexa Rank
Before I get into the details of how to legitimately improve your Alexa rank, let’s take a second and talk about whether or not it’s really worth all the trouble.
Some important things to know:
- Alexa does not affect your standing in the search engines
- Alexa rank is well known as at least fairly inaccurate
- A Higher Alexa rank won’t guarantee more traffic to your website
Why Most Theories Won’t Improve Your Ranking
In order to understand why the aforementioned tips and tricks are useless it’s important to understand the ideology behind the Alexa ranking system. Let’s keep it simple with another bulleted list.
- Alexa is trying to give every website an accurate grade
- Alexa can only get its data from people using the Alexa toolbar
- The only people using the Alexa toolbar are webmasters / tech enthusiasts, the people who know about an Alexa toolbar
- For the above reason, technology blogs are skyrocketed to the tippy top of the Alexa ranking system
- If your website doesn’t have a ton of content ( like a blog ) and / or isn’t technology related, you probably are not going to rank high. Ever.
Those are just the breaks when it comes to the Alexa ranking system, they’re important to know.
How To Improve Alexa Rank
After reading that list above you should have a pretty good idea of what you need to do.
- Encourage your visitors to install the Alexa Toolbar
- Publish content that Alexa Toolbar wielding visitors will seek out.
These are pretty much the same idea, split into two different approaches. Either convince your current readers to help you by installing that toolbar, or change up your content to attract a different type of visitor.
Conclusion
Save your time and money.
If you are really concerned with the arbitrary ranking system, adapt.
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Interesting take Jon. When we were evaluating marketing automation solutions we received some feedback that our site wasn’t ranking high on Alexa and they company we were looking at could help us with that. I guess I haven’t checked back to see if our ranking has improved or not since we implemented the system. Our site’s not a techy one so based on your analysis what we’ve done probably hasn’t improved Alexa.
Hey Scott.
It is unfortunate but you’re right. If your website isn’t techy your Alexa rank is most likely terrible. The worst part about it is that I love the idea behind a service like Alexa. Looking at websites for their traffic and links and such to give them a ranking is a sound idea. The only problem is that Alexa can only get that data from the few of us using their toolbar.
Hmm, what is ranking high in Alexa good for? I mean, if it doesn’t affect your standing in search engines. I suppose that very few people are interested in your Alexa rank, when visiting your site/blog.
Ideally, Alexa rank would be a good identifier of your website’s popularity. The problem isn’t that Alexa is inaccurate, it’s that the inaccuracy leans towards one specific industry (tech). You’re exactly right though. Alexa rank isn’t really good for anything. Sometimes investors or marketing companies will look at your website’s Alexa rank but for the most part it doesn’t come into play.
I thought Google Page Rank is all that matters. Thanks for this blog for enlightening me in regards to Alexa.
No no no! Google Page Rank is rarely updated and Google has publicly announced that even their internal Page Rank is a small, unimportant factor in their ranking algorithm. There are a lot of tools that can help you gauge your websites ranking. The best tools to use are Google’s own like Analytics and Webmasters.
Good luck!
I fully agree with your post, but let me add this… down to 200k is very possible, under 100k is for sites like you mentionned, and I agree with your bottom line that a superb Alexa rank won’t affect search engine rankings, at least not in my tests thus far.
It’s definitely possible to get under 100k. All I’m saying is that 1) Alexa favors certain website topics and 2) People really shouldn’t worry about their rank as it doesn’t affect their standings in the search engines.
I understand (and agree!) with your points, but – a good Alexa ranking is helpful for getting higher advertising dollars and possibly selling the site down the road for a higher price. So, as irritating as it is… I still have set a goal to get my site under 100k. Fortunately, some of the tricks to get there might help with page rank, too. fingers crossed!
Well said, that’s definitely true. Good luck hitting 100k!