Alexa Rankings mean nothing to SEO. And they should mean very little to you. No offense to Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, it’s nothing personal, it’s just that, the numbers there have no reflection on how you are ranking in search engines.

Now, I’m no Alexa expert. I haven’t spent a lot of time using it, I openly admit that. Why haven’t I worked with it more? Well, because even when I began my career in SEO and link building in 2006, Alexa’s ranking information was already being dismissed in regards to SEO.

I’m writing this, because I’ve talked to so many people who are looking for better organic rankings and better online visibility, that immediately describe their current condition by quoting their Alexa numbers. The two stats that get mentioned the most seem to be  the “Alexa Ranking” and Alexa’s reported “number of sites linking in”.  I hear things like “My Alexa ranking is better than THAT guy’s Alexa ranking but he’s doing better in Google and…blada blada blada (that’s a combination of blah and yada btw)… So after 3 consecutive conversations explaining why these numbers were flawed… I finally decided to create this post so that I can simply say, “Read this” instead.

Here’s the thing, as a FREE competitive analysis’s tool Alexa definitely has some features with merit.  I mean it. Aaron Wall gives a great review of some of these features with ideas on how to use them. In Alexa you can study page views, bounce rates, traffic sources etc., to gain competitive intelligence which can be helpful when designing a marketing strategy. You can also generate some keyword and content development ideas. But you CANNOT use their rankings to accurately gauge your site’s popularity or value.

I know, some advertisers and site buyers still use Alexa data to determine how much a site is worth for purchase or advertising space. I get that. But if you are trying to SEO your site and not sell it, then leave your Alexa stats off the table please.

So many people have formed a misplaced fixation on their Alexa stats in ways that simply do not apply to SEO.  Here is the bottom line; don’t trust Alexa. She is a self-centered little girl, and her “rankings” are inapplicable when it comes to SEO. And don’t just take my word for it either.

The Case

SEOBook

A long, long time ago, back in 2005, Aaron Wall, offered up his personal reasons for discounting Alexa rankings. In 8 bullet points he summarizes both what is wrong with Alexa and why the site was so popular.

More recently, as I mentioned earlier, his review of the 2010 Model is much kinder. Alexa Twenty-Ten can be very insightful, when used properly. But even Aaron’s recent review carries this word of caution: “What Alexa is most popular for – their traffic rank, is popular because it has been around for a long time and is well referenced. I don’t consider it to be a high value tool in terms of accuracy though. I think all these traffic estimation tools have a big margin for error, and its easy to read too much into the base/core number.” Still need more convincing? Fine.

Cash Revelations

This piece gives a concise account of how Alexa gets their rankings information. Put simply: “Alexa ranks sites based on information from users of Alexa Toolbar.” The article continues on to give a detailed explanation why this method results in biased un-reliable data. The short summary gives a fantastic bulleted list of the pros and cons of Alexa. Note the pros have everything to do with advertiser PERCEPTION and nothing to do with a site’s actual value.

Tech Jaws

Tech Jaws uses a real life example to demonstrate why Alexa rankings are bogus and are in no way a real indicator of traffic. If it can be PROVEN that one site out-performs another and yet Alexa still has the top performer under ranked… clearly this data is skewed.

Tech Crunch

Well, would ya look at that? You Tube is bigger than Google… If that sounds crazy to you…IT SHOULD, because it’s just not true. But here is yet another example of how Alexa is misleading.  This post offers up Quantcast and Compete as alternative traffic gauges.

SmallBusinessem

This article gives a terrific comparison between 2 sites. Viewing both the Alexa stats and the Google Analytics data on these 2 sites, we can see CLEARLY that Alexa’s numbers are inaccurate. Author Matt McGee sums up Alex’s fallibility in this perfectly pithy quote: “Alexa’s stats come from people who install the Alexa toolbar, and the only people who do that are webmasters and online marketers who have a vested interest in trying to manipulate their Alexa ranking into something that matters.” And if it’s not clear yet he says:

“Real estate agents, small business owners, etc., please do yourselves a favor and ignore your Alexa ranking. It means nothing.”

Alternative Options

The fact that Alexa rankings aren’t really useful in terms evaluating your SEO value doesn’t leave you helpless. All you need to know is how to check data that ACTUALLY matters. Like your rankings, your traffic, and your back links. Here’s how to get real, useful information on those aspects of your site.

Free Traffic stat counters

Google analytics is one of the most popular free programs for data tracking and it’s pretty comprehensive making it a top choice among many. Yahoo has their own version as well which offers a solid amount of data for analysis. In addition to the “big guns” there are literally HUNDREDS of stat counters available through private vendors, ranging from free to hundreds of dollars a month. Depending on how in-depth you want your analytics to get, you can probably get away with using a free program at first, at least until you get the hang of it, and get a feel for what kinds of data you need to investigate further.

Sites like compete.com offer the ability to compare traffic data on multiple sites but the free options give limited information and the paid accounts can get a bit pricey.

Using statistics programs which require the placement of code directly n your site will give you a much more accurate picture of your traffic, especially if you use multiple programs and compare the data.

Rankings Tools

If you want to know more about your rankings, give up on arbitrary Alexa rankings and spend your time focusing on the rankings that really matter, Search Engine Rankings.

Try using a ranking tool. The best one I know of is the SEO book ranking checker. It requires you sign up for the free membership but 5 minutes of registration time is a small price to pay for access to this tool.

Digital point allows for the free tracking of an unlimited number of keywords for day to day movement with graphs

Web CEO also offers a free version of their rankings checker but you can only monitor a few keywords, the paid version gives a lot more options.

All of these tools can be used with your own site, or competitor’s to view their rankings for various keywords.

Spy-Fu is another program which can check rankings, but instead of checking a list of keyword you put in, this site also provides insights about your rankings for keywords you didn’t even know you ranked for. You can also look at what keywords your competitors rank for. But you’ll pay for that information; the good stuff has a price.  Also, the information they provide may not always be 100% up-to-date, however if you want some surprises about what your site is ranking for, give it a whirl.

Back Links or In-Links

If you want to know how many sites link to you, don’t take Alexa’s word for it.

Linkdomain:yoursite.com –site:yoursite.com

Run that command in Yahoo! And I can’t stress that enough, Y-A-H-O-O. NOT GOOGLE.  Google’s information is even less reliable than Alexa’s. Google intentionally does not provide a full and accurate picture of the links they are counting toward your site.

If you really want to keep a constant eye on your numbers download the SEO Book Tool Bar for an instant view of any page’s domain and page back links and other data.

My Closing Argument

If you still aren’t convinced that Alexa rankings have nothing to do with SEO then here are “Some Important Disclaimers” that come directly from the Alexa website:

“The traffic data are based on the set of toolbars that use Alexa data, which may not be a representative sample of the global Internet population. To the extent that our sample of users differs from the set of all Internet users, our traffic estimates may over- or under-estimate the actual traffic to any particular site.

In some cases traffic data may also be adversely affected by our “site” definitions. With tens of millions of hosts on the Internet, our automated procedures for determining which hosts are serving the “same” content may be incorrect and/or out-of-date. Similarly, the determinations of domains and home pages may not always be accurate.

Sites with relatively low traffic will not be accurately ranked by Alexa. Alexa’s data comes from a large sample of several million Alexa Toolbar users and other traffic data sources; however, the size of the Web and concentration of users on the most popular sites make it difficult to accurately determine the ranking of sites with fewer than 1,000 monthly visitors. Generally, traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as not reliable. Conversely, the closer a site gets to #1, the more reliable its traffic ranking becomes.”

So there you have it, the reasons that Alexa rankings are biased, and unreliable. The Alexa numbers bear no more resemblance to the real value of your site than I do to a mongoose. If you have been using Alexa’s rankings, traffic or “in-links” to track your site’s progress, success or quality of SEO you have been wandering down the wrong path. So, while the information Alexa provides may yet be of some use in regards to sales, insight or advertising, it has place in the discussion on your site’s SEO future.

I rest my case.

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