What Is An Alexa Website Ranking?

Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California based subsidiary of Amazon.com, founded in 1996. Its name is a tribute to the Library of Alexandria, drawing a contrast between the globe's largest repository of knowledge in ancient times and the net today. They offer internet search engine and webcrawler services, and also website archiving on behalf of the Internet Archive non-profit organization. (These archives can be accessed through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine digital time capsule. For people considering different forms of search marketing Alexa can be very useful.
Alexa's ranking system tracks the popularity of internet sites around the world. It bases its ranking schema on the level of traffic each site receives from the number of individuals that check out a site by having the Alexa Toolbar installed. They describe it this way: 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 webpage views and users reach. As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of web page views for all websites on the World wide web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based upon the geometric mean of these two amounts averaged over time so that the rank of an internet site reflects both the number of individuals who visit that site in addition to the amount of pages on the site viewed by those individuals.
A site's Alexa Rank suggests precisely how popular that site is, based upon the number of site visitors over the last 90 days. This is a top-down rank, with 1 indicating the most preferred address, and greater numbers suggesting less preferred websites. For example, EzineArticles currently has a rank of 131, suggesting there are only 130 websites more prominent than them. At the time of this writing, there are ~ 18 million sites ranked by Alexa.
It ought to be noted that Alexa is able to only collect traffic data from users who have set up the Alexa Toolbar software; because not everybody has or wants this software program, it necessarily follows that Alexa cannot give a complete picture of a site's traffic. They themselves have stated that just the top 100,000 ranks can be considered truly precise; sites rated above 1 million don't obtain enough Alexa-enabled traffic for their positions to be statistically meaningful. This can be demonstrated by setting up the Toolbar, visiting a website with very poor positioning (someplace in the millions), and hitting the browser's refresh button repeatedly - such a website's Alexa positioning would improve considerably within minutes, but that cannot be taken into account an indication of their typical traffic patterns.
Additionally, because the Toolbar collects information pertaining to the websites gone to by individuals and delivers this information "home" to Alexa, lots of vendors such as Symantec and McAfee categorize the Toolbar as adware, spyware, or various other possibly undesirable programs. Not everyone wants this kind of software program on their computer system due to privacy, which restricts Alexa's audience further. For people interested in search marketing there are better tools out there but from a straight popularity standpoint Alexa is very useful.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cash_Miller

What is Alexa Ranking, How Does It Affect You & How Do You Improve Your Ranking?

Alexa.com defines themselves as "the web information company," but to webmasters and bloggers, they are so much more. Essentially, Alexa is a company that measures web traffic on almost every website on the internet through their increasingly popular toolbar plugin. This becomes an important element in leveraging your blog's ranking as a sell point to advertisers, sponsors, buyers, readers and whoever else wants a piece of your material.

Why is this important? Alexa rankings can make or break your business.

Before you freak out, let me explain how this plays out. Essentially, the way Alexa.com is measuring your website's traffic is one of the most unfair surveys around. Why? Well they only record hits on your blog if it passes through their systems... meaning that your visitors need either the Alexa.com toolbar installed or you need to have a widget displayed on your website.

Advantage internet/technology bloggers. As a whole, the tech readership crew is much more likely to have an Alexa toolbar installed than your typical user. What this means for non-tech focused websites is that they are going to be seen as having less traffic than others.

So I have less traffic according to some company... who cares!?

You need to start caring about your Alexa.com ranking if you aren't already. As much as it pains me to say this, they have a monopoly over the sector. As advertisers move away from the unreliable "Google Pagerank" service, Alexa Ranking is the next logical sell point to move towards (and eventually destroy :D ).

Your Alexa ranking is used as a big factor in valuing the advertising space on your website by, I would say, about 85% of advertisers. A higher positioning means more money in your pocket. Alexa rankings are being used increasingly to leverage blogs, despite the fact that the numbers can be horrendously manipulated. More high paying reviews, better advertising offers, more press coverage, it is a must have.

What can you do to improve your ranking?

So you have a less-than-stellar rating, don't worry... you can improve and manipulate this pretty easily. Here are the top three things you should be doing, anything else is water under the bridge... so when you read a post "the top x ways to improve your Alexa ranking," they are making most of it up out of thin air.

1. Place an Alexa.com widget/plugin or chart on your website
2. Install the Alexa toolbar on your own computer and encourage your readers to do the same on their computers
3. Write popular content and get SEO optimized for traffic

Pretty self-explanatory, throw an Alexa widget up on your website. Why? This logs your visitors even if they don't have a toolbar. Essentially, this can make up for visitors not having toolbars of their own (though not entirely). I have heard reports of HUGE gains after installing an Alexa chart or widget. They offer them to you on the website for free, so you should be taking advantage of their offer.

Other than that, you need to have the traffic to push your ranking up, so keep writing interesting content that is dense with information so you get the search engine positioning and page views that you need. Your ranking is based on your last three months of traffic average traffic, so while my weekly average is currently under 100,000, I am registering a 273,000 Alexa ranking. This will take some time, so be patient and keep writing.

Alexa.com ranking is important, so you definitely shouldn't underestimate its influence on your earnings. Don't get freaked out if your rating isn't so hot, because there is more to life on the web than statistics alone. But if you simply don't care, you need to start caring because you are missing out on potential income by having a poor rank.

-The Net Fool

The author of this article is Jim "The Net Fool".

He is owner of theNetFool.com If you'd like to learn more about blogging, you can visit http://www.thenetfool.com You'll find all the information you need!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_R_Regan

Increase Google Page Rank And Alexa Page Rank

What is Google Page Rank?

Google Page Rank as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, said it is an instrument designed to classify sites that are indexed by the Google search engine. Page rank can range from 0-10, 0 is the lowest score possible for a site, while 10 is the greatest. The bigger the page rank of a site with both receiving a greater number of visitors. A page rank grater then 2 is ok, page rank over 4 is excellent!

Ok, now you know what is Google Page Rank. But how exactly is it calculated?

Google uses a very complicated mathematical formula to determine the rank of a page.

When Google evaluates a site, taking into account several factors. The first is the general layout of the site and how is it complete. Google do not like sending the search engine to map incomplete websites, you should only send your site map when it is completely finished.

The second major factor is the use of keywords. Google favors sites with good use of keywords. They like a keyword density of 5-7%. Another important factor are the external links. Google loves when other sites send backlinks to your website. Another important factor is how often your site is updated. Google hates old sites, so be sure to update your site very often. All these factors are the basis of what is called Google Page Rank.

What is Alexa Rank?

Alexa rank ranges from 1 to 1 billion, or even more, depending on the number of existing sites. Each site found on the Internet is included in the Alexa network, so you're basically competing with everyone. The main goal is to have a rank as high (usually 1-700.000 is considered a good ranking). You can find your Alexa rank directly accessing Alexa.com and searching for your website.

How can I increase Google Page Rank?

The good thing about Google Page Rank is that it can be improved quite easily. Apply the following suggestions to improve your rank:

1. Create a site that is optimized for search engines. Your site should be full of quality content and your main keywords. Try to reach a keyword density of 3-5% and make sure that all keywords and content are in line with goal.

2. Use proper title and meta tags. One of the important factors in search engine optimization is the titles and meta tags. When you use them make sure the title is appropriate to your site and META tags are describing your site very well.

3. Submit your site map to Google. Do this only when the site is complete.

How can I increase Alexa rank?

To improve your Alexa rank you need to improve your traffic received by your site. There are many programs on the net who claim they can improve your Alexa rank, but generally they are not effective and may do more harm than good in terms of rank your site. Do not try to register your site to 300,000 search engines, it's the worst thing you can do!

There is a software called eMarketing Helper, with the help of this software you can increase your website rank on auto pilot, I suggest you should try it: http://www.emarketinghelper.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stoica_A_Bogdan