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| If
you have never heard
of Alexa ranking before
you are not necessarily
in the minority. Alexa
is a tool used primarily
by techies but is
catching on quickly
among the general
population using the
internet. Alexa is
a very powerful tool
of viewing and comparing
web site traffic for
one site to the rest
of the web. Basically,
Alexa says this is
the most visited site
on the Internet. But
what is Alexa and
how do they rank sites? |
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| Alexa
is a company owned
by Amazon.com which
has as its main purpose
to improve web navigation
through participation
from its users. Alexa
does a lot more than
simple rank web sites;
they also have data
services and webmaster
services designed
to improve the web.
However, the focus
of this article is
Alexa's Ranking system. |
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| First,
to even view a ranking
on a site you must
either go to www.alexa.com
and type in the site
you want information
about or do what the
majority of people
do: install the Alexa
toolbar onto their
browser. When you
install the Alexa
toolbar on your browser
any site you visit
displays its Alexa
ranking on the toolbar.
You can simply click
on this ranking (a
number) and you will
then be directed to
Alexa's website where
you can view more
information about
the website including
reviews posted by
users and viewing
a detailed traffic
analysis for the site.
But, the most important
aspect of installing
the toolbar is not
that you can view
the ranking of a site
easy, but that when
you install the Alexa
toolbar every site
you visit is monitored
by Alexa and recorded.
Now, Alexa is not
keeping tabs on you,
but this is how they
rank sites. |
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| When
you have the Alexa
toolbar installed
every site you visit
in a given day is
given a vote for that
day. If you visit
a site multiple times
during the day you
visit is only counted
once. Alexa, however,
doesn't stop there;
it watches how many
pages you view on
that site and records
that as well and will
continually count
the number of pages
you view throughout
the day (however viewing
the same page over
and over will only
count once). Alexa
calls the counting
of each visit "reach"
and the counting of
page visits "page
views." Every
day Alexa takes these
two figures, and the
figures from the last
three months and calculates
the traffic rank for
each web site by applying
a geometric mean (i.e.,
math) calculation
to them. From these
calculations Alexa
ranks sites. The ranking
is from the number
one site (ranking
one) to as many sites
as there are. The
lower the Alexa ranking
number the more heavily
visited the site. |
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| What
is interesting and
advantageous in looking
at Alexa rankings
is that Alexa rates
a site for the traffic
which has visited
over a period of months.
This gives a stable
realistic view of
a site measure of
traffic and how it
ranks compared to
other sites. By using
a three month period
the Alexa rankings
are less subject to
manipulation or by
a one time spike in
page views. Now, it
is not perfect. Alexa
only calculates for
websites in their
database because in
order to get counted
a site has to be visited
by someone with a
toolbar installed.
And everyone doesn't
have a toolbar installed.
So there may be a
site visited every
day by thousands of
people not in Alexa
rankings. But, it
is probably very rare.
Just looking at the
top sites you can
see that the heavily
used sites on the
Internet are ranked
very low in Alexa.
Here are some samples:
amazon.com (rank 14);
weather.com (rank
64); cnn.com (rank
26); google.com (rank
5); Yahoo.com (rank
1). These rankings
are generally consistent
with the amount of
traffic they have. |
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| Now
there is quite a bit
more to Alexa and
Alexa rankings but
this is enough to
get you started. But,
when someone mentions
they have an Alexa
ranking of xyz or
they say they are
the most visited site
on the web you now
know what is going
on. |
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