I have had my own fare share of problems trying to increase my traffic. And my Alexa rank was one area that was an especially glaring problem. When I first found out that Alexa even existed, my rank was in the 300,000’s. Now my rank is near 170,000. It is still nothing to brag about, but it definitely is a marked improvement. I have scoured the web looking for tips on how to further increase my rank and I thought I might share some of these tips with you. I will also show you my results in a later post.
What the Hell is an Alexa?
Ah yes. Even after I found out that Alexa existed, I still wasn’t entirely sure what they did. I knew that they were somehow affiliated with Amazon, but beyond that, I didn’t know much. Perhaps they can best describe themselves:
Founded in April 1996, Alexa Internet grew out of a vision of Web navigation that is intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users. Along the way Alexa has developed an installed based of millions of toolbars, one of the largest Web crawls and an infrastructure to process and serve massive amounts of data. For users of Alexa’s Toolbar and web site this has resulted in products that have revolutionized Web navigation and intelligence. For developers this has resulted in a set of tools unprecedented in scope allowing whole new services to be created on the Alexa data and platform.
They are a primary and credible source for ranking websites. Your popularity and even your advertising revenue depends heavily on this number. As to how it is calculated, again I know that their toolbar is crucial, but beyond that, I did not know much. Let’s hear what Alexa has to say on the matter:
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis.
The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)
How To Increase Your Alexa Rank
Now for the tips! Naturally, you don’t have to follow all of this advice; you may even want to be very weary of certain methods (autosurfs…). But in the end, there should be some kind of increase in your Alexa rank.
- Install the Alexa toolbar and make your website the homepage.
(Internet Explorer Download | Firefox Download)
- Tell all 3 of your friends to download the toolbar as well! Ok, hopefully you have more than 3 friends.
- If you work in a friendly office environment, get them to install the toolbar on every computer.
- Try to find and pay other companies (internet cafe’s, other companies) to install the toolbar along with your homepage.
- Join an Alexa link train (much like a Technorati link train).
- Write a post about Alexa!
- Write a post about a top Alexa site and mention that fact.
- Have your buddies review your website on Alexa.
- Add your URL to everything! Email, forums, business cards, etc.
- Put an Alexa rank widget on your blog.
- Use Alexa redirects (http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.jdavidmacor.com) in place of your url.
- Create some sort of webmaster tools page.
- Use Alexa autosurfs (does not play nice with adsense).
- Suggest related content for your site.
- List yourself on every directory you can find.
- Answer questions on Yahoo Answers with convenient links to your content.
- Show only post excerpts on your homepage; 1 users will give you 2 impression.
And remember, don’t be discouraged if your ranking doesn’t make giant leaps; especially if your site doesn’t focus on content for webmasters. Alexa is inherently biased towards that type of content, so if your niche is elsewhere, you might never see dramatic results.
Great sharing!
I just changed domain names and I have been madly trying to come up with ways to increase my alexa rank so I’m happy to read these tips! Thank you.
Glad you liked it.
Another excellent post my friend!
I’ll definitely try out the ones I haven’t done yet. Btw, because of this entry, an idea came into my mind that might lead to something good. I’ll let you know more about it when I’ve proved this idea to be feasible.
And of course you forgot to mention joining MyBlogLog. This is a great resource for increasing traffic. StumbleUpon is another community and if your site page is stumbled expect well over 500 daily visitors. One question – is there a bonus for referring someone to the toolbar as there is with Firefox?
I don’t think that we should depend on alexa traffic either, I wish we all could be in top 500
that would be awsome.
Checkout also my stumble experiment that i wrote about today.
[...] J. David Macor’s Alexa guide Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
@Jaypee: well now you have me very curious…
@Terry G: You are right. Joining my bloglog does help, as that audience is also relatively technically savvy
@Julia3x: You are right… we should be in the top 500. [sigh]
But hey, that stumble experiment is a cool idea. Good luck with it. I helped you out myself
Those are some great tips. Getting even a few people to visit your site on a regular basis through the toolbar can give you some traction. I like the ideas of baiting Alexa users with articles on the topic. Funny stuff.
You know, just installing the toolbar myself really helped. Before I had the FF extension, I just opened IE once a day and that had a small but measureable effect.
How does a redirect to alexa URL interfere with your normal SEO links?
I mean: does a search engine see such a redirected link to my site or to alexa?
That’s a good question, Linky. I only use the redirect for my link on MyBlogLog, so I am trying to avoid any kind of issue similar to that.
Good list, there are plenty of ways to improve your rank, but I think it’s only a matter of time before “gaming” like this is forced to change.
J David: I agree with your idea, yet a mybloglog link to your own site also has value (especially for newbie sites)
I was in the position most of you were about two months ago, a few tips make sure you are going to places where you can target the alexa tool bar users in masses….There are is one that is called alexadex, buy and sell your website and actually post comments regarding you site, Dont spam, but ask webmasters what they think…The widget helps maintain your score but does not help move it up that much…I went from 2.5 million to top 16K in the states…It was painful two months but I did it every day..
Thanks,
Ahmad
http://www.ezluv.com
[...] Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank [...]
[...] I have had my own fare share of problems trying to increase my traffic … and even your advertising revenue depends heavily on this number. As to how it is calculated, again source: Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank, j david macor.com [...]
Thanks for making this information public!
I wish Alexa would make it easier than that.. =(
[...] to Alexa ratings (don’t worry if you don’t know what I am talking about; just get caught up). Well, they have finally come out with a similar tool for Firefox. You can now see your ratings as [...]
[...] Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank [...]
That’s a comprehensive list. I personally don’t take care much about Alexa rating as it seems only dummy users have it installed on their PCs.
How does a redirect to alexa URL interfere with your normal SEO links?
I wish Alexa would make it easier than that.. =(
Is the Alexa data very accurate? I’ve heard by some that the data is fairly accurate and by others that its not even close. So it must be somewhere in the middle, right?
[...] Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank [...]
[...] (where has he been!?) covers Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank same as dosh dosh here… be weary of some of the tactics – be honest. Related [...]
[...] Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank : This post was created by JDavid at jdavidmacor.com. His blog currently has an Alexa Traffic Rank of 104,946. Although most of his tips can be found at Maki’s post, there are still a few unique suggestions that may help. [...]
This is can be a fun experiment. Thanks for the tips.
Now your score is #206,165 it’s great and still “dropping”. Awesome !
You know, I have an opinion about what you write is what you get! If you can write something with enthusiasm, than you an achieve it. Like writing on Alexa Traffic Rank…
I’ve started a blog on career, jobs, and so on 2 days ago, and now it has a rank #10,000,667.
Just watch it how fast the rank is dropping!!!
It’s amazing!
If I reach #1million I let you know it
!
http://www.polish-in-budapest.info/
[...] J. David Macor’s Alexa guide Thank you for reading this post. You can now Read Comments (3) or Leave A Trackback. [...]
Thanks for al the tips on alexa…i used to have a ranking of around 65,000 now its like 600,000 and i get more traffic…yeah i think i need to implement some stuff hey….
I have been looking for a while for a good list of ways to boost alexa rank! Thank you very much for the information.
I have my domain name redirecting to my blog link?
Is that ok?
Would I be able to boost my rank anyway?
Working with:
http://www.RioTheYorkiePoo.com
Instead of my blog link?
I think so…What do you think?
Hey…don’t forget I’m just a dog!
“A lil one with a BUG heart”
Ohhh By the way I meant…
“I lil one with a BIG heart”:-)
Sometimes my paws don’t
know how to type very well…LOL
Rio
http://www.RioTheYorkiePoo.com
Hang out. Invite Friends. Get Paid.
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I heared the announcement that alexa has changed its ranking algorithm. I am little happy with this change because my website got little improvment. see new alexa ranking for http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?url=www.fortunehotels.in Fortune Park Hotels Ltd.
Thanks for the info.
i have already install alexa rank and i want to watch what will be going on for my blog. thank for your information and thats very usefull for me.
[...] (where has he been!?) covers Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank same as dosh dosh here… be weary of some of the tactics – be [...]
Great information, thanks for sharing it with us. i will try it out for my newly kids portal http://www.buzziboy.com
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After spending two years building my own website, I was very disappointed that my Alexa ranking was still higher than one million. in order to improve my Alexa rating, I spent about three weeks combing the web to find tips, secrets, and proven strategies for increasing my Alexa ranking. Unfortunately, many of the sites offering advice didn’t even have a high ranking themselves. Please advice!
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I must agree with the above posters comments that most of the sites providing SEO advise have a very low page rank.
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@Solent Blue, Having a low page rank dosen’t mean they can’t provide quality advice. Most SEO companies hardly optimise their own sites – though I believe in “Practise what you preach”. Alexa ranking works only for those with the toolbar installed on their systems.
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Timeless tips. Good article.