How to Increase Alexa Ranking and How is it Different From Google Page Rank?

My Alexa ranking is beyond my wildest dreams! I was happy once I made it to 250,000, and my goal was 150,000 by Self Sagacity's first blogsversary, which is on December 3rd, 2010. As of today, my Alexa ranking is 129, 544 {hoping it stay the same or better until I post this article} and I have my regular readers to thank for this.



If you don't know what Alexa ranking is, it is a toolbar / application that keeps track of your website's traffic, or any website. It monitors the page views, and how many visits your website gets. To see what your Alexa ranking is, go to Alexa.com and download the toolbar. Follow the directions, then sit back and let the toolbar bring up the numbers for you.


Alexa is not about content, or linking peers. It is not like Google page rank. With Google page rank you could have a 6 rating and only have 10 visitors a day. Alexa is purely about the amount of traffic to your site. If I was an advertiser, I would look for traffic rank, and not so much page rank. It makes sense to me that if I am trying to get the word out, I want a website with loads of traffic. The more the better for my advertisement.
I was completely at lost at one point when I was working hard to build traffic and saw that my rank was at a stand still, literally for a week at 250,000 something. I was shocked, because Alexa is known to be volatile. And it should be, because your website doesn't have the same amount of visitors or traffic every day. Unless you're one of the big guys, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, or Facebook. But recently I read that Alexa goes by a three month average. Not an average as in median but more in terms of a three month's performance.

The three months performance made sense as we discuss another case and point. In July & August my numbers took a big hit for being away, and being busy with life. Even after I came back regularly, I watched my numbers eat up something like 30,000 more pages, from 170,000's to 200,000's. Ouch! It hurt.
Beyond the assistance of managed hosting that we sometimes take for granted. I built Self Sagacity's traffic by hard work, so seeing this discouraged me somewhat. But I kept doing what I love and try to forget about the numbers. It wasn't until October that my Alexa rankings started going down steadily, and I have been an ecstatic fool. I don't want to think of the bubble burst, or what it all means at this point. But I am close to going under 100,000! Yet it is not one of my goals, and I am not pursuing it at this point. There is too much competition, and it is not good for my blood pressure.
So let's sum it up and I will leave you today with a tip in how to increase your Alexa ranking. Aside from all your support to build your website's traffic, try installing the Alexa toolbar, the more visitors to your website with the Alexa toolbar, the more your traffic rank will be counted. One of the ways Alexa gather data on which sites are popular and which are not is by the toolbar usage. For example, when you surf the web with your Alexa toolbar you are casting votes for the sites you visit. The more times you visit a site and the more pages you viewed while there, the more important you are saying the site is. Alexa is like the reader's choice ranking system, which means that your frequent followers / readers are the ones casting the votes on your site. Now how you can make it happen will be up to you.


Thanks for stopping by today.

34 Comments

  1. You always have such good information. I'm so glad to be out of the hospital and back to catching up on blogs! Still under the weather and having to be on a horribly restricted diet for 30 days.

    I wrote a poem about hospitals on my blog today to send to the nurses at Seton...very good care.

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    1. Yes, I am glad you are feeling better. Hope the Alexa ranking info will explain the difference with page rank for you.

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  2. Thanks for the explanation, and at this point, like you, I don't want my blood pressure sky-rocket!

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    1. I guess we should not be taking it too seriously, just for the fun of it.

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  3. I'm following from Friendly Friday and I do have the Alexa toolbar installed! :)

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    1. Hey, hey, that means a another traffic count for me. I will come around to visit you too. Smiles.

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  4. Thanks for the awesome info. I am always looking for new ways to promote and market my blog and get more traffic. This blog will be a great resource to me. Thank you so much!

    Following you now – Follow Friday

    http://pregnancybaby411.blogspot.com/

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    1. Wow, yes, we are all in the same boat. You're welcome. It could be a full-time job, and one that never ends or turn off.

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  5. Wow, congratulation as well as for the wonderful tips.. But I shall leave that for now.. Yep, am not really in the state for it.. You know, about my injury and until today, I still have yet fully recovered.. But of course, I am able to sit and type which is sure a better sign.. Thanks for being around, my dear and yes, saw your comments and had replied them.. Miss you soooo much too and will be back to read what I missed.. *HUG*

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    1. Glad you can come by to drop me a line. I didn't know something happened to you. Can't wait until you can come back full force.

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  6. I know the pain and joy of trying to increase Alexa rank and how difficult it can be. Now that I have been under a 100,000 for a few months, I want to get into the top 50,000, which seems like such a long way off...can I do it, of course I can!

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    1. You're so right, pain and joy just like raising a kid huh? I checked your site. Wonderful stuff and a PR 4 too. It's quite impressive.

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  7. Great info, as usual. With all the computer issues I have had as of late, I am simply happy to be able to get on once again. lol

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    1. I have been there too Judy, probably for most of the year while blogging my computer and internet sucked. Now, I just re-vamped my old computer (2005) and it is doing pretty good for comments and surfing!

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  8. @blueviolet Hey, hey, that means a another traffic count for me. LOL

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  9. @DP Wow, yes, we are all in the same boat. You're welcome.

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  10. @Krislin Neo, Ting (Syracuse Pike) Glad you can come by to drop me a line. I didn't know something happened to you. Can't wait until you can come back full force.

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  11. @Judy Sheldon-Walker I have been there too Judy, probably for most of the year while blogging my computer and internet s---

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  12. I was reading about Alexa not long ago but your explanation of how it works is far better than others I found. I might give it a try sometime but right now I'm kind of like Judy with computer issues. About time I think I have the computer straightened out I lose my internet connection!

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  13. @SquirrelQueenYes, I am not sure who writes the article sometimes. To me, it is in English, but it is so far from simple language. I am glad I can say it like it is.

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  14. Great write-up. There are some other factors as well. Alexa only counts other Alexa viewers to your site (people with Alexa toolbars). You can be getting a large amount of traffic from Google every day, but Alexa does not count this.
    Obviously, this is an unfair way to count traffic, but as you said, many people and directories do check on your Alexa ratings.

    Also, if you live in the US, your blog tends to be higher than ours in other parts of the world. I think it's because Alexa users are more widespread in the States.
    I've been tempted quite a number of times to register my blog in the U.S?

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  15. hmmmmm.... glad you post it here. i don't have the time to research on that anymore. i need some spoon feeding here. thanks for the info... it's very helpful.

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  16. Very nice explanation about Alexa traffic ranking. I just broke my 1 million mark in Alexa traffic rank.

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  17. I sure hope Alexa is important because I've gotten my Alexa rank down nice to around 400,000, but I cannot get my PageRank above 0, even though I've been producing original content for about 5 months. Congrats on your first blogsversary.

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  18. Very cool. Stumbled and will be back to read more. :)

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  19. Very informative! I stumbled this post, here's mine: http://luxuryreading.com/sarahbower/

    I recently ran a contest offering a prize for people who left Alexa reviews - it helped!

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  20. Very thorough post on Alexa rankings. Having the toolbar helps yourself and other bloggers out too!

    I stumbled your post and would love if you'd stumble mine!
    http://www.texastypeamom.com/2011/03/making-time-for-mommy.html

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  21. I've had the Alexa toolbar since December (when I registered this domain) and it's gone from around 3 million to right around 950,000. It definitely helps!

    I stumbled your post mine is here: http://tofa.ca/2011/03/my-boobs-my-business/

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  22. Stumbled! Mine is http://kellysluckyyou.com/2011/03/coming-soon-build-a-beautiful-blog-week-blog-design-tips-and-giveaways/

    Your rating is 100,498 right now - almost there, congrats!!

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  23. Hey

    I came to your site via the daily meme.

    Thanks for the Alexa stuff.
    yeah, its true that Alexa ranks your site on the base of daily traffic rate, but I think Google page rank matters. Currently, My site has below 1,100,000 Alexa rank in just one and a half month. This is because I get average 100 visits daily. But my page rank is still 1, no increase! :(

    Do you know, Google gives rank for individual pages? So my question is, how long does it take to get a new page ranked higher?

    Thanks,

    - Darshan.

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  24. Hi!

    Just passing through and trying to learn from your great example of PR and Alexa rankings! Keep up the great work and please visit me sometime:

    funksanctum.blogspot.com

    Love,
    Me

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  25. This is good advice. We have worked very diligently over the last two months to lower our Alexa Ranking. It has paid off quite well. We went from 3.5 million to 825,000 in that time. We are at 200,000 in the US.

    We have blogged. Used directories and linking to only quality sites and it paid off for us

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  26. You can learn lots of great info about your site from the Alexa tool bar!
    Stopping by to say hello and to give you a boost! :-)

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  27. Reading this in 2016 and this info is still very relevant and helpful (h) Thank you. I will keep working on my website www.artvestastudio.com

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