Alexa is a database of popular websites owned by Amazon.com that gives rough estimates of how much traffic a site receives. Since 1996, Alexa has been allowing web users to download and install its toolbar. It then collects this data and uses it for its page rank calculations.
The result is that if you go to the Alexa webpage, you can check your site to see how much traffic you are receiving relative to other websites. There is also a Movers and Shakers page that tells you which sites have gotten massive boosts or declines in traffic over the last few days as well as a Top 500 sites.
How Accurate Is Alexa
I’ve found that it depends on the type of site. Alexa gets its rankings from users who download and install its toolbar. If you were to install the toolbar and visit your site regularly, you’d artificially give your site a boost in the Alexa rankings.
So, Alexa is great for determining how popular your site is among the millions of people that have the toolbar installed. Who those people are probably more web savvy since they know about the toolbar. There are also a large number of people who refuse to install the toolbar since they don’t want Alexa to collect data on how they surf the web.
I’ve also found that Alexa has a tendency not to record data from some sites for a few days/weeks. If you look at a site and its traffic reach or page views has a “–”, that generally means that Alexa hasn’t collected data from the site and you can expect the site’s page rank to plunge.
That said, Alexa tends to be fairly accurate for sites ranked in the top 100,000 and for sites with extremely targeted traffic – the latter because your statistics will be less likely to be skewed by random people with the toolbar installed who visit your sit.
What is Alexa Good For?
Here are a few things that Alexa is good for:
- Tracking a site’s statistics over time. If you have surges in your site’s traffic, they’ll most likely show up as spikes in your traffic results.
- Showing other pages people are likely to visit. Alexa has a feature called “People who visit this page also visit.”
- Showing other sites that link to a site. Alexa has a feature called “Sites Linking in” that lists a number of other sites that link to the site.
- User reviews. If you have a popular site, you can solicit user reviews to post comments about your site.
If you would like to install the Alexa toolbar, you can download it here. Just be aware that for all its benefits, it will send information about sites you visit back to Amazon.com.
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