Alexa is a tool used to measure the amount of traffic you receive to your website/blog. This is not something that will tell you exactly how many people visit your site, but it ranks you, compared to other sites. Your goal is to get as close to 1 as possible, so many times you will hear people say their Alexa “dropped”, which is a good thing.
According to Alexa:
“Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources. The information is sorted, sifted, anonymized, counted, and computed, until, finally, we get the traffic rankings shown in the Alexa service. The process is relatively complex, but if you have a need to know, please read on.”
Why is Alexa important? If your Alexa rank is low, that means you have more traffic and better rankings you will have on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Not to mention a lot of PR people want to know your score before they offer you sponsored posts.
How is Alexa calculated?
This is where Alexa gets tricky. It only registers views from readers with the Alexa tool bar installed. There is a toolbar/extension for each type of browser.
How do I drop my Alexa?
Simple, just get more traffic! If it were just THAT easy, right? There are many ways to drive traffic to your site. You can join hops, host giveaways and join blog forums. Forums many times offer Alexa drop lists, giving you the ability to work with other website owners several times per week. If you visit each other’s websites, you help to generate views and drop the Alexa.
Now if you work hard at it, dropping your Alexa can happen very quickly. I began working on my blog in June, 2011. My Alexa ranking was over 19,000,000. I didn’t think I would ever be able to improve it. Improving to an acceptable rank seemed out of my grasp. I worked hard at it and as of August 20, 2011, my Alexa ranking is just over 108,000!! I’m hoping to be under 100,000 by morning! So it CAN happen!
First step, download that Alexa toolbar! Start visiting sites, sign up for forums and hops! Your Alexa will begin to improve daily!
About Amber
I thought about this and haven’t been able to get there. Then I thought that is all I need. A web site telling me that I don’t measure up
This was encouraging. I started on my blog in mid July and it is now in the mid 500k… and now I know I can keep dropping. Alexa is the first thing my twin sister who blogs told me about. Blog Hops are fun too! I hope you keep dropping and get below 100,000 before the morning
I hit 98,809 THIS MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!
Alexa can be a hard number to drop but mine went from well over 900K to 170K in just about 3 months… I know if I worked a little harder and commented on certain blogs more I could get more traffic… Some days it gets overwhelming but then I check the number and see it drop some more….