What Is Alexa Rank?

Results of Alexa ranking cover sampling of millions of users worldwide. Being a working method in getting traffic and stats, it has both pros and cons.

Let’s examine an example. TV networks spend imposing sums of money – billions of dollars – to carry out surveys and analyze TV habits of 40,000 people. Results still don’t contain all the data they need and are full of diverse flaws. They understand it but still find lots of valuable information.

That is how Alexa actually works!

Complaints like ‘data are inaccurate’ or ‘it’s useless’ should start with gaining understanding of how Alexa ranking actually operates, and only after it you should think how to improve Alexa rank. It collects data from those users who installed its toolbar. These limitations resulted in biased data because these were webmasters who made it for different niches. Alexa reacted to these complaints by making its analysis and methodology wider. So, today it contains more detailed sampling of online traffic.

In order to use it, you should enter your domain name in the search bar. As it tracks about 20,000,000 sites worldwide, it will give you the place among them.

You might guess who takes the 1st place here – of course, it’s Google!

Besides, some users might receive the following message: ‘Not enough traffic data’. It happens when Alexa has no record of your website traffic. It’s noteworthy that Alexa provides site position in conformity with other websites’ places. This relative comparison is what you really need while checking Alexa rank of your resource!

As Alexa is helpful on its own, you can count on a variety of valuable information if you combine it with other worthy tools.

How Do Alexa’s Rivals Collect Their Data?

SimilarWeb and SEMrush are regarded as effective additional instruments. The 1st one gets its data from crawl on the Net, different Internet providers, and click data from millions of users who installed the app. ISPs or Internet service providers render stats that reduce the risk of bias by making the content diversified.

SEMrush bases its research on the first 100 Google results from keywords. For this reason, it gives a great idea of resource traffic due to search.

Since all these 3 tools use different sources of data, they can provide really detailed and accurate information.

Alexa Improvement

In 2008, it was decided to update Alexa so that it could orient towards a more varied and wider user database. As a result, 25,000 diverse browser toolbars, extensions, and plugins were introduced. They didn’t only correct all biases but improved Alexa ranking of many websites.

Now Alexa uses data from different third-party providers and sources where site engagement has become a determining and contributing parameter to ranking. So, it compares information and stats in order to correct and normalize bias that exists in any source.

Are Alexa Ranking Data Accurate Enough?

Recent reviews of Alexa showed the results of previous years. Thus, it’s hard to estimate its accuracy without changes that have already been made. For instance, Alexa demonstrated a great boost in the 1990s and 2000s, but most issues were corrected only in 2008. For this reason, most reviewers didn’t pay attention to real improvements and updates. However, Alexa rank checker tries to be informative and timely.

Why Do We Still Find Inaccurate Reviews?

Google ranks sites that demonstrate visitor-generated signals as authoritative ones. It might work till readers discover that information is no more fresh or correct. Therefore, old well-ranked articles can show great results only together with some new ones.

Actual Website Traffic VS. Alexa Rank

Analyzing this issue made us come up with the following insights:

• Alexa score and traffic have evident correlations that can’t be called in question;
• The higher your site traffic is, the more reliable your ranking seems;
• If your traffic decreases, unreliability increases.

Your resource can jump from 10 to 5 million after adding a few visits per day, but it will require tens of thousands of viewers a day in order to reach 100 thousand instead of 50 thousand.

So, how to increase Alexa rank service if you want to promote your business?

Those who already work with Alexa know that there’s no big difference between 5 and 10 million since both results are poor for this system. The only way to receive reasonable traffic is to sample different Internet users – that is what indirect methods are about.

All in all, Alexa, SEMrush, and SimilarWeb are worthy and efficient tools that provide traffic and give lots of data to estimate your resource from different points and parameters. At the same time, you can’t use Google Analytics to get data about competitive sites. Of course, there’re lots of additional services for it, but are you sure that you want to pay for them if the 3 above mentioned resources charge less or even make it for free?

Thus, Alexa web rank, SEMrush, and SimilarWeb are known as indirect methods for site estimation, giving access to data of your rivals as well, whereas Google is oriented only towards your resource.

7 Ways Alexa Rank Can Help with Your Business Promotion

Alexa ranking has always been known as a working and useful way of measuring popularity of your resource. Here are 7 ways you can use for your business to make it grow.

• Compare your website with others in the niche

It serves as one of the most helpful functions of Alexa – compare your site with other portals in the same niche. This way, you discover your position in the market. This comparison will provide you with tasks and goals to work on by trying to pass your competitors.

• Make sure whether your website’s traffic goes up or down

All site owners are in panic when they see that the site loses its traffic. After it, they try to discover what’s happened – that is when the performance of rivals in your market seems to be interesting and worthy information to examine.

Some site owners have noticed that when they lose rakings, a new eye-catchy company strives to cut its ‘piece of cake’. Also, the reasons for it might lie in Google updates, changing trends, or seasonal changes that most businesses face.

Therefore, if you check Alexa rank and see your resource losing its positions while your competitors are gaining them, you’d better think about what they are doing in a different way.

• Estimate a commercial potential of any website

Having your business online supposes that you are ready for partnerships like guest posts, joint ventures, sponsorship, etc. In this case, Alexa rank gives you more opportunities for business promotion.

For instance, a marketer with an ad space on his resource might receive above 10,000 viewers per day. When you see 5 million by Alexa for this resource, it’s 99.9% that it’s not true. Just a free check and you get the truth – there’s no need to collaborate with this marketer.

• Get quick and fixed site’s estimation

You might need the performance of your website on the Net for different reasons. The point is that you want to see fixed results to estimate traffic potential and perspectives. Alexa is designed just for this.

• Seek for potential influencers

Do you want to find out other businesses that might be useful for yours? Certified Alexa rank allows evaluating their potential. The more analysis you carry out, the more understanding you gain which businesses worth your attention and which – not. It’s a great opportunity to build relationships with true giants in your or other spheres.

• Find affiliate resources

If you dispose an affiliate program, high-grade marketers can be really helpful for you as they may give a great boost! The only point here you should take into account is how useful and effective they will be for your niche or sphere. For this, turn to SEMrush, Alexa, or SimilarWeb to make sure whether their traffic is organic and which percentage it has among other traffic sources. After it, you can use Google Analytics and its instruments.

As you can see, Alexa is one of worthy and reliable tools to consider while looking for affiliate opportunities.

• Verify proof of success

Whatever your business sphere is, don’t try to use Alexa for discovering who’s responsible for delivering goods. For instance, you’ve checked rankings of 2 resources and found out that their results are the following: 8 and 13 million, accordingly. Does it really mean that these businesses are successful?

Hardly! Compare them with 500 businesses at Alexa that are presented as Top 1 million. You might be surprised to know it, but a successful business is not about a great site with lots of options and features, it’s about building income and developing the project.

As most online businesses don’t demonstrate their revenue and results on their sites, the most evident proof of success is their traffic. You won’t earn if you don’t have viewers who become potential buyers.

How to Estimate Your Site at Alexa in Numbers?

In order to make it, you have to find out what category your sites belong to as there’re 6 of them:

• Outstanding (100 thousand and less);
• Excellent (from one hundred thousand up to one million);
• Rather good (from 1 to 2.5 million);
• Medium (from 2.5 to 5 million);
• Poor (5 to 20 million);
• Invisible (when a site doesn’t have enough traffic to estimate it).

Most outstanding sites represent large and middle-sized businesses while all invisible websites are presented by solopreneurs – entrepreneurs that run their businesses themselves.

The statement ‘Not enough traffic data’ presumes that a site is mostly invisible for visitors as Alexa with its toolbars, extensions, and other instruments has no information about it.

We’d like to share the main insights how you can estimate your resource according to 6 above mentioned groups:

• When you’ve just finished designing of your resource, being invisible is absolutely normal.
• If your resource is young and developing, the rank of 10 million is great for you.
• If your site is already mature (with about 30 pages), a ranking of 5 million can be regarded as an impressive one.

For more data, you can turn to SEMrush and SimilarWeb to analyze all website traffic parameters in detail.

Alexa Opportunities for Influencer Marketing

Is it possible to check and analyze engagement stats in order to define the social power and perspectives of potential influencers? As well as success in social media, website traffic should be taken into account while finding affiliates or influencers.

Let’s take up an example. One business would like to sell its Math courses online and so looks for joint ventures. Though it has lots of imperfections like old-fashioned design and interface, their site shows that worthy content attracts potential clients and search traffic on the whole. Why does it operate like that?

The site got Alexa rank of 30 thousand – that’s the highest result which means that it’s among outstanding resources! There’re no doubts that it’s a high-ranked resource.

However, you can use other tools to estimate the site’s perspectives. As SEMrush demonstrates both organic and paid traffic, it shows that this website has 200 thousand – that is huge for a solopreneur and high – for a middle-sized company. Take into account that the resource owner didn’t pay for any sort of traffic. Results of both tools confirm that the site attracts users and can boast of high traffic.

As for SimilarWeb, it reflects Alexa’s numbers – ranking of 52 thousand with 1 million viewers a month! It doesn’t actually matter whether the result is 30 or 50 thousand since both are outstanding.

If you check social media, this presence could hardly be called imposing. The site’s owner disposes its private page on Twitter and the one not so well-presented on Facebook.

According to this analysis, you can think of mutually beneficial partnership such as:

• Affiliate programs;
• Guest writing on his website;
• Advertising campaigns on his site.

As a result, Alexa is oriented towards finding potential partners for your business and estimating their potential and opportunities.

When Is It Better Not to Use Alexa?

We can name just one reason when you shouldn’t turn to Alexa. The idea is that Google provides direct measures. For this reason, you’d better not use Alexa to estimate your own traffic. You might find lots of confirmations of this point on the Net: from thematic forums to various marketing blogs. Why do users worry about Alexa when they analyze their own websites? Here are some causes of it:

• They have no idea of Alexa concept and the way it operates on the whole.
• They gained the main idea but felt confused about the results they got. For instance, they hoped to see a high boost of their site as they spent lots of money and time on its promotion.
• They use this tool to demonstrate the share of traffic and their popularity by showing their superiority and please their self-esteem.
• They decided to make use of falsely high Alexa rank as the reason for selling ad space or products.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, Alexa is regarded as a worthy and effective tool to estimate competitors’ sites – not yours! So, use it correctly!