I have 2 sites now so I can see first-hand how inaccurate Alexa Ranks can be, which are supposed to measure the level of traffic a site gets. The inaccuracies are created because Alexa relies on measuring how many users who have installed the Alexa IE toolbar.
For many sites these inaccuracies aren’t an issue, but many advertising services like Text-Link Ads and ReviewMe, as well as potential advertisers use these stats to gauge the value of advertising on a site, so monitoring your Alexa Rank can be important.I’ve become a bit frustrated with the fact that my Alexa Rank (currently 26,070) is lower than some sites where based on Google Analytics data I have more traffic. So, I’ve decided to try a few of the methods that DoshDosh have suggested to improve Alexa Rank, and it’d be good if as many of my readers as possible took part to see it works for their sites as well.
Maki listed 20 steps to Increase Alexa Rank, but to take part in the experiment you only need to try 1 or more of the steps below (remember to record your Alexa Rank before you start):
- Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the most basic step
- Add an Alexa rank widget on your website
- Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar. This includes friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers
- Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.connectedinternet.co.uk. Replace connectedinternet.co.uk with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will count a unique IP address once a day so clicking it multiple times won’t help
If sufficient numbers of your readers join the experiment and follow steps 1&3 then your Alexa Rank should definitely increase. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone sees any improvement from adding the Alexa rank widget.
