Do you think Alexa ranking is credible?

[domainress]

Hello,
Some of my developed domains as sites are doing incredibly well on Alexa. One started from 2,000000 and in a month reached 800,000.... Does anybody know if this ranking is credible?

 

[peter phillips]

I don't think the ranking is credible enough as it definitely doesn't measure the true popularity of a site, but can only give you some idea if people with the Alexa toolbar installed are visiting your site.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Nice to get relative rankings, but NOT accurate and not CREDIBLE as a sales criteria.
Too easily manipulated, and it only tracks certain demographics (Mostly those with alexa's toolbar installed) that fails to capture the full result.
-Allan

 

[Earthian]

Alexa ranking is good only for a vague idea of the popularity or the traffic of a site ... unless it is in the top 100,000 , in which case you can get a vague (again) picture of the reach/rank/page views during the last period ...








the results are vague because Alexa only tracks the hits from users that have certain Alexa files (in their computer's registry) . When you install the Internet Explorer it contains some files of Alexa (some people refer to it as a type of "spyware") . If you don't uninstall it it sends data to Alexa and that is how they compile their lists . You can easily uninstall the files with most anti-spywares (eg. Ad-Aware -freeware-) . Therefore , more seasoned surfers (who usually scan their systems regularly and have probably uninstalled the Alexa files) usually don't send any data to Alexa . It does not need the Alexa toolbar for them to track hits , those files in the IE are enough .








also the results are vague because their "reach" and "page views" results are "per million users" and therefore they do not represent a specific number (absolute number) but a rate (relative number) , since you don't exactly know how many millions are the internet users .

use this link to get an idea of the total number of internet users
(the "per million" in Alexa , of course does not correspond to this number , but rather to "per million users with Alexa files")

and this interesting link for real-time world statistics (population , etc)

 

[fonzie_007]

Short answer, No. I agree with what Allan said.

 

[Domino]

My expirience

Our webiste was 1 and half year ago in the 80.000 ranking...and now we have more than doubled the visitors but...Alexa says we are ranked on 375.000 so...its not credible at all...Im sorry

 

[Zeeble]

It is only really an accurate representation once sites are in the top 20,000 or so. What you need to remember though, is that the most common usage of the toolbar is by webmasters who want to see the alexa ranking of their own sites, which obviously boosts the alexa ranking of other webmaster related sites which they visit.

 

[mebreezy]

I'd say no as well... But it would be cool to have your site down in the XXX (of course you'd probably be rich as those are huge businesses)

 

[dongan]

No. they are not important. but, it will be one of factors in terms of SEO.