Two and a half months ago my Alexa rank was around 7 million; today it’s a shade over 335k. Unless my maths is way off, that’s a two thousand percent gain! And the good news is it’s still rising - the “official” Alexa rank for a site is an indication of its average traffic over the past three months, but they also show a one week average - this site’s is a little under 200k.
So how did I do it? Extensive link building? Premium content? Long hours? Well, yes actually (I’ll leave you to be the judge of the content) - but that’s not what I attribute this rise to, at least not directly. In actual fact, it took all of about 10 minutes two and a half months ago to sow the seed that is now beginning to bear fruit - I’ll give you a little hint:
That’s right, I simply installed an Alexa traffic widget.
What is Alexa Rank?
Essentially, Alexa rank provides an indication of the traffic flowing through any site on the internet. Alexa gathers data on site visitors and page views on a per-site basis and then ranks sites according to their popularity; the lower the rank, the more popular the site. You can find more details in the Alexa help if you’re interested.
According to Alexa they gather data from many “diverse traffic sources”, but their primary source is from the surfing habits of those who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Now, since it’s mostly techies who have this installed, many have noted that Alexa favours tech sites, so tough luck if your site is all about the mating habits of the lesser spotted goldfish!
Why install the Alexa widget?
That’s where installing the widget comes in. By doing so, you’re effectively turning every visitor to your site into a virtual toolbar user for the duration of their visit, and thereby providing Alexa with a pretty accurate view of your site’s traffic. This means you gain an advantage over those who don’t have the widget installed, since Alexa has to extrapolate far more in their case. But it’s not an unfair advantage - after all, anyone can install the widget. Neither do I consider it “gaming the system” - there’s nothing artificial about the data Alexa is receiving. On the contrary, you’re ensuring they receive the most accurate view of your site possible.
Who cares what your rank is anyway?
Advertisers, that’s who! Rightly or wrongly, Alexa rank is one of the primary indicators used by potential advertisers to evaluate your site. So it stands to reason it’s in your best interest to present your site in the best possible light if you hope to make some spare cash from it. Enough said.
How to install the Alexa widget
It couldn’t be simpler. Simply head over to the Alexa Site Widgets page, select the style of widget you’d like, plug in your url, and paste the resulting code fragment into your site’s html or template.
Thanks where thanks is due - I first heard about this from Yaro Starak. At first I was really sceptical, but I guess you can tell I’ve gotten over that now! Thanks Yaro.
Let me know how you get on.
Hey Rodney, you’re doing awesome and thanks for the cool tip!
I’ll trade ya.
Install the SEOQuake toolbar and you get all kinds of stats for every site you land on (including yours) as soon as you hit the page.
BTW, in the middle of this article I looked up and noticed my Alexa is just under 214K! Sweet…I’m gonna install the widget now.
Am I insane or didn’t you have commentluv?
OK that may be two different questions. LOL
OK riddle me this batman LOL - i just went to build a widget with my traffic rank and “links in”…it says 152 links in??? I do believe I have A LOT more then that…thousands more.
What’s up with that?
I just emailed support also…I’m really curious how they calculate links in…
Dennis: wow, so many questions!
214k without the widget? Man, you are going to be sub-200k so fast it’ll scare you (I hope)!
I also don’t know how they calculate links in - they say I have none at all! That’s one of the reasons I decided to go with the most basic widget. Anyhow, I didn’t put it on there to show everyone how great (or not) I’m doing - just to see if it would give my rank a boost.
No, I haven’t gotten around to CommentLuv yet - I’m trying not to use too many plugins, as each one slows a site down a bit, and the cumulative effect can be noticable.
Thanks for the SEQQuake tip - I’ll check it out. Currently I use the SearchStatus addon for Firefox which sits unobtrusively in my status bar and tells me everything I need to know.
Are you insane? I haven’t figured that out yet…;)
OK scare me baby! LOL
On widgets - here’s a little secret…I don’t brag either; in actuality I never remember to visit the different sites to see how things are going (Alexa, Feedburner, Technorati, etc.) so having the widgets and such right on my own blog helps me see where I’m at. LOL
On CommentLuv - The newest version 2.5.4 is completely re-coded. I believe Andy (the author) stated that it takes virtually none (very very very little) resources from the individual system.
Honestly? You will see everything bump up if you install it.
What does SearchStatus give?…or perhaps another post idea for ya.
On insanity - OK a buddy and I came up with a question years ago, and no one seems to be able to answer it…
If you ARE insane…you KNOW you’re insane…you ADMIT to being insane…..would that not in fact, mean you’re sane?
Have a great day.
Ummm, yes…?
From the SearchStatus page: “Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and other SEO tools.” Mostly I use it for quick visibility of the different site ranks, but the other stuff is cool too - my favourite Firefox addon!
311k today!
you sneaky little b*st*rd
well, done ! ok, no time for long comment … got widget to install … bey bey
That’s why Alexa is considered to be inaccurate. It is also sufficent to install their toolbar and visit your website three four times a day to see your rank boooost! But in the end you are right, advertisers care about Alexa and having a high pagerank make a big difference for your…wallet! You know what, I am going to install the widget too!! LOL!!
Michiel: why, thank you (although I doubt this even registers on John Chow’s scale of evil tricks!). Let me know how it goes, OK?
Webtlk: You have to make the system work for you, or you get left behind.
Hmm ok, I just changed my widget. I had picked the one with the date but apparently that’s static for some odd reason.
202k!
Rodney,
I was just kidding, I got alexa toolbar on all our company’s PCs and our site set as the start-page … you should check that peak in our stats, that’s when I installed it
cheers,
Michiel
Installing Alexa widget for an extra boost is something that’s been going on…I put mine on my About Me page.
But like I just said,it’s only a “boost”!
btw: Dennis has a point, you gotta install CommentLuv man…
Woohoo!
Congratulations on the drastic rise in Alexa rank! I know many people also benefit from using the Entrecard widget on their blogs…
Divas, I’m one of them; the whole Entrecard thing is indeed a nice little widget as well.
Thanks guys. Although, if I understand correctly, Entrecard is a traffic exchange system? The Alexa widget doesn’t get you any extra traffic - it just reports accurate figures back to Alexa to inform their ranking of your site.
Rodney,
they go together of course; the alexa counts your traffic, while the Entrecard gets you that traffic
Hey Rodney,
Thanks for all the good info. I’m just starting to optimize my blog and this really helps. Will be installing the widget as soon as I leave here. Think I will checkout the Entrecard plugin also. Need all the help I can get.
Keep up the good work,
Tom
EC gives off an excruciatingly high bounce rate - discount it.
Tom: Thanks for stopping by.
Dennis: You’re not the first to say that, which is why I haven’t bothered up til now.
That’s true, I’ve notice some tremendous increase on my alexa rank since I put that widget on my blog. Kudos to you for this guide Rodney
Dang, nice results. Congrats, and thanks for the tip.
This is one tip I never heard of anywhere else. I will be trying it out on my main blog later today. Thanks!
Congrats on your ranking. That alone proves that you are getting more traffic than you used to get before. Keep it up, buddy and yes, with the widget it makes quiet a difference actually. It just doesn’t fit nicely into my design so it’s not an option for me.
Yan
Nice ranking. I think I will install that widget on my site so that I can start raking in the visitors. I would love to have a 2k percent gain. Thanks for the tip.
I want to thank you again for this. I’m now below 200K.
Norhafidz: that’s great news, keep it up!
Yan: you seem to be doing just fine without it!
Dennis: no problem - I reckon you’ll be sub-150k before you know it.
@Rod:
I’m glad I did without it….
By the way, care to leave your thought here?
Who doesn’t want to be his own boss anyway?
Yan
Hai Rodney,
As i heard if our visitor mostly came from us traffic, it will boost your alexa since many us visitor use alexa toolbar rather than asian visitor or europe, thats what i heard from one of blog posting ( i forgot the url, pardon me
)
Alexa widget increase our rank ? yeah maybe but since i use the widget too, i have very diferent rank before iam not use that. Now i can reach 19k alexa rank and i hope that will increase in this month
Congrats Rodney on your achievement. At this point of typing the comment, you have dip below the 300k Alexa rank mark. I have tested the movement of ranking with and without the widget and it seems that Alexa Rank indeed drop faster when I have the widget on.
But again, that was because my blog was pretty new thus the leap in rank was huge. Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt adding an Alexa widget right?
Wei Liang
Wei Liang: Thanks. Another site of mine was still in the 3M range even after having decent traffic for about 6 months. Then about 3 months ago I put up the widget, and now its Alexa is down to about 600k. It definitely works (and as you say, what have you got to lose?)
Rodney,
This is a really great suggestion.
I’m going to give this a try and see how it works out.
It sounds simple enough to do.
Thanks for the information.
OMP: you won’t regret it.
It seems kind of weird that a widget can do that, But hey if it works I am willing to give it a try. Thanks for the Tip.
Thank you for the tip, i’ll give it a try and let you know back. btw, i’m starting at 28 million right now
Larry: no problem - thanks for stopping by.
linking4u: Eh bien, nous avons tous pu commencer quelque part. Je suis sûr que vous verrez monter rapidement à partir de là. En passant, je ne suis pas vraiment parler le français - Je l’ai fait avec l’aide de Google (voir mon article sur traduction).
Merci de l’arrêt par.
Just installed it! My initial value is 228,697. Maybe installing it will get my rank a little higher. But like you eluded to, ranking only means something to those who may want to advertise on my site.
Thanks for the post, this gives me a reason to care about rank.
Wayne: Yeah, but if it brings in a few extra bucks, must be worth doing, right?
Congrats for the success, I have heard that this way one can boost Alexa rank, but you showed the real example. Now I must believe it.
That is a great idea. I think I might use this myself. I didn’t know how Alexa picked up the traffic for my site but htis makes more sense and so I think the widget may be making an appearance pretty soon on my site
Rodney, congrats on the improvement. It’s not to be in your face or anything but I’m pretty sure that you can calculate your increase the way you did. Sorry. When you show improvement you have to base it on the starting number and not the ending number (which I believe you have). If you want to use percentage you can exceed 100% (which would give you an Alexa rank of 1). I know it sounds cool to have a 2k percent increase but it’s not possible. On the other hand you CAN have a 2k percent decrease, because you would then be able to base it on the 335k rank.
Antphilosophy: I’m afraid I don’t agree - it’s certainly possible to have an increase greater than 100%. For example, if I’m earning $100 and my boss gives me a $50 raise, that’s a 50% increase; if he gives me a $200 raise, that’s a 200% increase. The tricky thing with Alexa is that lower is better…
Anyhow, whether or not my maths is correct, I think you get the point. Thanks for commenting.
Rodney, yes I agree that you can have increases of more than 100% in many cases but not with Alexa (because of the the way it counts). But no need to argue about that. I just recently found your blog and I really like what I read so I’ll be back to read more of your posts. Thanks.
Antphilosophy: Thanks - you’re very welcome.
Great tip, I’m hoping it will upgrade my site from ‘No data’ shortly…
Simple and easy tips. I have installed Alexa widget on my blog too. At first when they changed their program to new alexa, there is a problem. My alexa keep dropping. Now, it is starting to increase back.
Is it just me or is the Alexa widget huge, blocky, ugly, and obtrusive? If they had an invisible widget I think I’d be game to help them track stats. I don’t advertise on my site at all, so that argument flies out the window for me, but I would still like to increase my Alexa pagerank, if for nothing else, just because. =)
Martin: you’re right - it’s not the most attractive. But at least you can stick it in a corner somewhere and not diminish the effect at all.
Even apart from advertising, increasing your various ranks is not a bad idea, as it makes it more attractive to potential buyers should you ever decide to sell up and move on to something different.
I officially confirm that the trick is working smoothly! I managed to boost my Alexa pagerank and now from 400,000 and change I have almost reached 200.000! This happened in a matter of one month! Great tip!
Web talk: glad to hear it - thanks for reporting back!
Seems I’ve lost ground since I last commented, nearly 20k! Interesting. Need to find out what might improve this number beyond this now.
Wayne: well, your 1 week average is around 150k, so I’d expect it to keep rising. By the way, how come your rank is displayed in the Traffic History Graph? Mine just says “not in the top 100k” - well yeah, but neither is yours!
Very cool. I’ve been moving up steadily without the widget. Ill install it and see if it helps. Thanks for sharing and congratulations!
Matt: I’m sure it will.
Interesting article great valid points - I think it’s also important though not to forget that actual traffic is still what we’re after. In that regard here’s something to consider when link building - when considering a link exchange from another site we need to verify if Google has visited and cached that page within 3 weeks, We don’t want a link from a dead page.
Thanks I just added it to my site
Current stats
1 wk. Avg. 184,601 3 month ave 1,838,531
I get about 1000 to 2000 visitors a day
lets see what happens I want to get in to the top 10K