Alexa is not the solution anymore (was it at some point?)

**Nic SEO** · 24 May, 2009, 16:33 PM

Let's face it people, Alexa is now worthless.

Maybe back in 1996 it was a wonderfull piece of website, but today, it is inaccurate and ranks websites on untangible factors that can be hack very easily.

The main problem, and maybe the only one, with Alexa is that its rankings are based ONLY on users who have installed the Alexa toolbar.

Back when JohnChow was a noob, he had a pretty funny issue with this system. Here's the link.

I have done some research and found out that I am not the only one thinking this way.
On Blogoscoped.com, I found this comment which is pretty self-explanatory.

Originally Posted by Tony Ruscoe

I was looking into Alexa rankings some time ago (between Sep 2004 and May 2005). They're absolute crap IMHO!

Just by using the Alexa IE toolbar, I managed to get a NON-EXISTENT website (i.e. a random domain which wasn't even registered) to rank around 1,500,000. (It entered at around 3,000,000 and took 2 weeks to climb to 1,500,000.) That might not sound like much, but it's a higher ranking than most people's personal home pages and plenty of "serious" company websites!

During the same period, my personal website jumped from a ranking of 1,800,000 to around 300,000 in just one month. After another two months, it was ranking at around 100,000! (Today it's ranking around 480,725.)

I'm not sure if it's still so easy to sway their results, but I certainly can't take them seriously after discovering all that!

I can't believe some people trade domain names and websites and use their Alexa's ranking as an argument.

Here's my question: does Alexa have a reason to be, now, in 2009?

PS: I posted this in the SEO section, which is the closest section in my opinion for all that mathers online ranking sites.

**gloson** · 25 May, 2009, 01:47 AM

I believe that Alexa is becoming better, but it is not as good as Compete and Google Trends.

In August, 2008, Daniel Scocco wrote a post on how Alexa is becoming worthless (How inaccurate it is), and that Compete and Google Trends are better.

Alexa is Becoming Completely Worthless
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/alexa-i...ely-worthless/

**Nic SEO** · 25 May, 2009, 04:13 AM

Originally Posted by gloson

I believe that Alexa is becoming better, but it is not as good as Compete and Google Trends.

In August, 2008, Daniel Scocco wrote a post on how Alexa is becoming worthless (How inaccurate it is), and that Compete and Google Trends are better.

Alexa is Becoming Completely Worthless
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/alexa-i...ely-worthless/

Actually, I was thinking the opposite. Alexa is worst than it ever was.

And thanks for the link, I will have a look at Compete so I compare it to Trends.

**gloson** · 25 May, 2009, 13:27 PM

Originally Posted by Nic SEO

Actually, I was thinking the opposite. Alexa is worst than it ever was.

And thanks for the link, I will have a look at Compete so I compare it to Trends.

So, how was the comparison?

**Nic SEO** · 25 May, 2009, 19:58 PM

I was really impressed with Compete. Even though it has a comparison limit, it is very accurate and more detailed than Google Trends.

Thanks for the share Gloson!

**nadhare** · 29 May, 2009, 17:48 PM

Well what do you know.. it seem now alexa is not became the first reference to see the site traffic anymore. But sure mostly people (that not awareness) still considering alexa as they measurement.
Thanks for the links it really bring some enlightenment here he he he

**Farrhad A** · 29 May, 2009, 20:48 PM

I would not say Alexa is COMPLETELY useless. It is a small factor to consider.

And PLEASE Alexa has changed their algorithm, it takes metrics from other sources too and not just the toolbar.

**CoreyFreeman** · 30 May, 2009, 00:36 AM

I never really liked Alexa. I can't really attest to its accuracy but numbers like 300,000 borderline on "too big to bother with" in my personal opinion. Ranked in technorati top 100 I can get. Ranked in the upper 500,000 on Alexa (I don't even know if that's good or not)? That's a bit much.