The Other Search Engines

**timbre** · 12-07-2006, 08:32 AM

I have a lot of times about this term, but I realy don't know what does it mean? Please explain me with examples.

**ADAM Web Design** · 12-07-2006, 12:16 PM

It's a rank Alexa assigns to a site based on the number of visitors to the site that run the Alexa toolbar.

It MEANS absolutely nothing, because the toolbar leans more toward webmaster-based sites (e.g. mattcutts.com) and it's subject to manipulation (e.g. if you visit the same site twice in a day, it counts as two visits...at least that used to be true about it.)

It's something that newcomer SEOs and blackhat types who like to manipulate their clients use to show how successful a site is, but it's not a true measure of traffic. The truest measure is your site stats, depending on the program used.

**kline11** · 12-07-2006, 05:25 PM

Alexa rank is as useless as Google PR. I would focus on more important things having to do with your website.

**people-finding** · 12-11-2006, 05:59 PM

i wouldn't worry about it, alexa isn't goign to give you much traffic. liek the above posters said its just alexa's stats based on their toolbar users who vsit your site.

**amyangel** · 12-14-2006, 09:23 PM

But what is alexa traffic mean ?

**hhheng** · 12-15-2006, 04:47 AM

It's a traffic rank. But this rank is useless if your rank is below 10000, it's not accurate. For exampel, my website only has a daily unique visitors around 80, but the alexa rank is 260,000. Definitely for such a low traffic, can't be rank to 260,000.

**KimSanders** · 12-17-2006, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hhheng

It's a traffic rank. But this rank is useless if your rank is below 10000, it's not accurate. For exampel, my website only has a daily unique visitors around 80, but the alexa rank is 260,000. Definitely for such a low traffic, can't be rank to 260,000.

It means nothing. Webmasters try to point to it as proof they have a popular site getting a lot of traffic. The fact of the matter is, there's software on the market that tricks Alexa into thinking your getting a ton of traffic everyday. Don't bother with looking at Alexa indicators as if they indicate anything.

**amyangel** · 12-19-2006, 11:26 PM

Thank you I see now.

**Gracia** · 04-25-2007, 07:11 AM

It's a traffic ranking. The lower the better. Your ranking means that you are ranked 772,242 for most traffic of websites on the internet. Only those with the Alexa toolbar send traffic data back, so it's not very accurate in most cases. An alexa under 100,000 is considered descent, but can easily be skewed by the demographics of your users. Websites with alot of experienced web users and webmasters are more likely to have the toolbar installed.

For example, I have one site that gets 1300 uniques / day and is not webmaster oriented. It's Alexa is ranking is 441k
Another website I have gets 200 uniques a day, and is webmaster related. It's Alexa is 69k.
Note that I do not use the Alexa toolbar.

In most cases, simply installing the toolbar yourself and visiting your site in the course of your daily routine will get you around the 100k mark.

**luvlyn** · 04-27-2007, 06:50 AM

well, i use alexa (not the tool bar) to compare traffic between two sites right on alexa.com, useful ex. if you want to advertise on a site, you can compare approximate traffic between your site and the advertising site!

**ADAM Web Design** · 04-27-2007, 12:30 PM

No you can't, unless 1) you don't use the Toolbar and 2) anyone associated with the publisher's site doesn't either. Even then, you can't fully compare because there are certain niches (e.g. anything technical) that lend themselves to higher Alexa rank.

Not only that, Alexa doesn't lend itself well to new sites. Here's a classic example:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr....com&x=26&y=10

My Alexa rank is 744,873. Looks pretty crappy, right? Here's the problem: the site has only been around for a month and a day, and this in no way reflects my traffic (because many of my users have never even HEARD of the Alexa toolbar.)

**sheena** · 04-28-2007, 04:41 AM

Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users.
You may read related article about Alexa
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2...rankings-mean/

**audiomad** · 04-28-2007, 06:43 PM

alexa monitors your website traffic not just down to the tool bar I dont use the tool bar and I have asked my members which search engines they use always google and yahoo. my site is curently ranked 948,000 on alexa up 3 months and after gaining 4 and a half million places I have around an average of 200 uniqe visiters a day I doubt many of them use the tool bar. the alexa webmaster tools has a tool to show web traffic and page views none of which is to do with the tool bar statistics.

**ADAM Web Design** · 04-28-2007, 07:45 PM

That doesn't mean that none of your members use the toolbar, Barry. It also doesn't mean you're not picking up occasional traffic from people that are using the toolbar.

Alexa rankings are measured by the toolbar and only the toolbar.

http://www.alexa.com/site/help/?index=12

**sylwester** · 04-29-2007, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

That doesn't mean that none of your members use the toolbar, Barry. It also doesn't mean you're not picking up occasional traffic from people that are using the toolbar.

Alexa rankings are measured by the toolbar and only the toolbar.

http://www.alexa.com/site/help/?index=12

I am curious how is possible that some NON-english sites ranking so well, for example:
- Yahoo Japan - Alexa rank 11 www.yahoo.co.jp
- Yandex - alexa rank 39 www.yandex.ru
- Google PL - alexa rank 42 www.google.pl
- Onet PL - alexa rank 48 - www.onet.pl
cause not many people from Japan, Poland or Russia even heard about Alexa or Alexa toolbar.

**stOx** · 04-29-2007, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sylwester

I am curious how is possible that some NON-english sites ranking so well, for example:
- Yahoo Japan - Alexa rank 11 www.yahoo.co.jp
- Yandex - alexa rank 39 www.yandex.ru
- Google PL - alexa rank 42 www.google.pl
- Onet PL - alexa rank 48 - www.onet.pl
cause not many people from Japan, Poland or Russia even heard about Alexa or Alexa toolbar.

Big sites don't need many users to be using the alexa toolbar to get a good alexa ranking. If 0.0001% of googles users used the toolbar and 100% of my sites users used it googles alexa rank would still completely destroy mine.

Also, People in non-english speaking countries do use the alexa toolbar. Why wouldn't they?

**ADAM Web Design** · 04-29-2007, 12:42 PM

What st0x said.

What you also need to factor into that equation is that at least two of those sites are search engines, and therefore of some interest to webmasters and SEOs who would use the toolbar.

The Yandex site looks like a web portal, and Onet looks like a Yahoo! clone (although since I read neither Russian nor Polish, I can't tell). If this is true, then again, it would be a target of webmaster-types who run the toolbar.

**letsjoy** · 04-29-2007, 06:27 PM

A Drama...Just Kiding

Alexa measure traffic through its tool bar mostly it gives estimated avg.

**chrishirst** · 04-30-2007, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by audiomad

. my site is curently ranked 948,000 on alexa up 3 months and after gaining 4 and a half million places I have around an average of 200 uniqe visiters a day I doubt many of them use the tool bar. the alexa webmaster tools has a tool to show web traffic and page views none of which is to do with the tool bar statistics.

All Alexa "stats" are gathered via the toolbar.
Or did you give the alexa bot (ia_archiver) access to your site logs so they can analyse your sites visitor stats directly?

I would assume this isn't the only "webmaster" forum you are a member at and that you have signature links and/or a "home page" link in your profile at each of these forums.
Well, very many newbie webmasters and "link begging" webmasters/SEOs have the alexa toolbar installed.

ALSO Internet Explorer has a "feature" of related links available from Tools -> Show Related Links, which queries the Alexa servers (via MSN) to show these links.
So even without the Alexa toolbar people could well be passing information about their browsing. This is where the Alexa/IE spyware issue came from.

BTW If you use the related sites "feature" you can make it query Google instead.

**W3Rez** · 05-18-2007, 01:40 AM

An Alexa Ranking means nothing. It can be bought for about $400. If you want to go from 4m to 50k that can be achieved in one day and for a monthly fee, it can be maintained. If you want a higher ranking, it costs alittle more, but the principal is the same. This ranking is achieved without visits to your website.