Understanding Why Alexa Rankings Are Important

New web publishers often find themselves bogged down with all the lingo and jargon. Trying to figure out what numbers are important for gauging a site's success can be impossible. For many, it's hard enough keeping up with Google ranking. The truth is, however, there's more than just one ranking system a website publisher has to worry about. Alexa is one such ranking measurement that can play a role in how valuable or not any given site is for potential advertisers.

Alexa is a creation of Amazon.com. The site offers a ranking system that tracks the traffic sites obtain. This measurement system, however, does have its share of problems. Ranking is based on the number of visitors who use a special Alexa toolbar on their browsers when they visit sites. Despite this issue though, many advertisers pay attention to Alexa ranking to determine value and rates. This makes it important for publishers to pay heed to this ranking number.

As stated, the Alexa rank comes from the number of visits a site has had from those with the toolbar installed. The rank itself is based on historical data collected over several months. The number is a measurement of both page views and visits combined. The site does take daily computations of reach and page views. The actual rank results from these two numbers averaged out over time.

Alexa ranking can be directly connected to how well a site does in regard to advertisers. This rank is used to determine pricing and/or the value of a site. Sales programs like Text Link Ads, Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe all use the Alexa rank to determine the advertising pull a particular site might have.

Getting going with Alexa is easy. All that's necessary is downloading the toolbar. Those who use Firefox can pick up the SearchStatus extension. Once this is installed, pages you look at will register on Alexa's radar.

There's no denying that Alexa rank is important, but the system has its problems. The first one is the fact ranking tends to be skewed toward those sites that have a technical audience. This is simply because these sites have visitors that are likely to have an Alexa toolbar installed on their computers. In essence, this makes Alexa ranks a bit unfair. Still, they are widely used by advertisers. With this in mind, it is a very good idea to understand methods that can be used to increase ranking.

Breaking into the top layer of Alexa's ranking system is very difficult. Gaining an impressive ranking, however, isn't necessarily very tough. Methods for increasing rank vary in difficulty, but they all can pay off. One of the most simplistic and effective ways to increase ranking is to simply build up relevant content on one's site. Another fairly good way to increase rank is to work to obtain incoming links to one's site. These two methods combined can increase traffic, Google rankings and Alexa rankings all at once.

There are other fairly easy ways to boost Alexa ranking. They include putting an Alexa rank widget on one's own site, getting others to download and use the toolbar, putting this toolbar on all of your computers and your office's and even asking friends and family members to rank your Alexa profile. Some other ways to boost rank include promoting your personal URL in webmaster chat rooms and forums, creating articles that relate to webmasters and even using Alexa redirects to your own site.

Other methods for increasing ranking exist. They can take a little more work though. Some of the better methods include creating a webmaster tool section on your own site, getting Dugg or Stumbled on, forking out for ads and even simply writing about Alexa on your own site.

Some less favored methods for rankings can also be tried. These include tooling MySpace pages to work as Alexa redirects, using auto-surf programs and purchasing homepage rights at Cybercafes.

Alexa is not necessarily the most accurate ranking system going, but it's an important one. Maximizing ranking can improve ad rate potential and increase overall traffic to your site, however. It's not a bad idea to include this ranking number as a consideration in an overall marketing strategy.

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Author Jeff Alderson develops webmaster search engine software. He is an expert on boosting traffic and sales. Jeff suggests using Ad Word Analyzer to uncover popular keywords for your website.