Hello all,
    Welcome to the first in the series, “The Alexa Code -understanding and influencing Alexa rankings“.

    Today, we deal with What is Alexa? What are Alexa rankings? How are the calculated?

    What is Alexa? Alexa is a search engine cum directory cum stats/rankings service, owned by Amazon Inc. For a little on Alexa’s history, read up our introductory post to the series. They released a browser toolbar, and all their further services were based on, or about, the toolbar.

    What are Alexa Rankings? Alexa Rankings is a system of grading for websites based on the number of daily Pageviews for the particular page as recorded by the Alexa Toolbar. Today, we are concerned about how our privacy is being intruded by different sources, and there was this big hype about MS Internet Explorer recording sites we visit. But no one’s noticed the fact that the Alexa toolbar submits information to the Alexa website about every site you visit, and your personal information, like computer stats and location.

    Actually, when a user who has the Alexa toolbar installed, visits a site, the toolbar records the website URL, the location of the user, and other details, and sends it to the Alexa databases. It is counted as ONE visit. Thus, the number of daily Pageviews is calculated by Alexa, and according to the number of Pageviews, each website is specified a rank, named Alexa Rank.

    The site with the highest number of Pageviews each day, gets No.1 spot. The No.1 spot is usually occupied by Yahoo! or Google or MSN.

    Thus, each website is given a rank. This rank is frequently referred to as a deciding factor for the popularity of the website, since a proper system of grading is absent, except for Google Page Rank, which is not very comprehensive.

    Only the first 10,000 sites are updated in rank daily. For all others, the 3 month average rank is calculated. [3 month average = (todays rank + rank 3 months ago)/2 ]. The 3 month average is updated every 3-4 days. So you can expect the same rank for 3 or 4 days at a time.

    But the Alexa Ranking technology is notoriously incorrect and unreliable. Consider the fact that ONLY those Internet Explorer users who have installed Alexa toolbar can help in Alexa rankings. That shortens the margin a lot. Read more on this in the next issue, of The Alexa Code.

** upcoming **

PART II - Why is Alexa biased, incorrect and baseless? But then why is it used? How will it help me?

PART III - How can I improve Alexa rankings? Alexa plays dirty, so can I play
dirty with Alexa? What are the “twisted” means to improve Alexa
rankings?

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