Alexa changed its ranking system: I'm a winner!
Alexa is an often criticised ranking of web sites, with the criticism largely based on the use of the Alexa toolbar as a source of data. The use of the toolbar data skewed the ranking in favour of those sites visited by internet marketers and search engine optimisers, those who installed the toolbar, rather than the average user. Alexa's big news, which everyone reported yesterday (e.g., Mashable, TechCrunch), is that they are now using additional data sources, although what they are is not very clear in their announcement.
Obviously with any change in the ranking system there will be winners and losers, and those who win are less likely to complain than those who lose. Personally I think the new Alexa rankings are a HUGE step forward. This conclusion is based solely on the increase in my own personal ranking. Back in January I noted that the Alexa ranking for Webometric Thoughts was 3,816,072. Today my Alexa ranking is 1,607,649 (1,389,032 for the 1 week average). Breaking into the top one million suddenly seems much easier.
Labels: alexa, webometric thoughts, webometrics
1 Comments:
Alexa.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. It is a website which provides information on traffic levels for websites. The Alexa rank is measured according to the amount of users who’ve visited a website with the Alexa toolbar installed. Alexa toolbar is an application developed by Alexa Internet. Its primary use is to measure website statistics. This toolbar collects as well as gives some valuable information. Once you install it, the Alexa toolbar monitors all your surfing and collects information about what domains you visit. They use this data to rank web sites. The traffic rank they assign to websites is based on 3 months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of other users and is a combined measure of page views and users. Webmasters, advertisers and ad networks use your blog’s Alexa rank as a gauge to determine the worth of a link on your website. If you depend on link or site selling as a form of monetization you’ll definitely want to increase your Alexa rank, because it’ll increase your bargaining power when it comes to ad pricing.
07 May 2008 06:50
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