How to Improve Alexa Ranking by Targetting Geographically
Alexa, while not the most accurate of statistics does hold its place in the worlds of advertising, blogging and general web development. Basically, the higher your rank (lower the number) the more you can charge. Here is one ’sure to work’ method to improve your Alexa ranking, around the globe.
First to clarify, Alexa matters. It’s a myth in the web development that Alexa is a worthless stat, but it’s quite the opposite. Its a little (OK, a lot) on the inaccurate side because it only takes stats from those that use its toolbar (or use a special link). For instance, if you click here, you’ll come back here, but you’ll be redirected through Alexa and be counted. Seriously, click that link. The Alexa toolbar doesn’t support FireFox, or any browser worth using for that matter, which really takes its stats for the inaccurate turn.
For example, my 3 month rolling Alexa rank at the moment is around 206k. I also have around 70% FireFox users. Alexa can only count 15% of my visitors, so that skews my ranking on the negative side. The following is a theory at best and should work if executed correctly, but I can’t say I’ve tested this (yet). The goal of this is to improve your traffic in genera, but target it specifically.
Alexa rankings are more or less averaged (I wouldn’t be surprised if countries have different weights) by country to get your global rank- the one that matters. For example, my daily Alexa rank is rarely top 100k (lately) but in Nepal I’m in the 3k regions. That doesn’t mean when someone asks me what my Alexa rank is, I say “3,951″. But this is the idea: If you can bring your rank up (number down) in the countries you don’t rank very well in, your global rank will improve immediately.
For example, when viewing a site’s specific rating, it gives you an option of viewing the rank in certain countries. For this site, it shows me the following (at the moment of writing):
- Nepal: 3,951
- United Kingdom: 19,955
- Canada: 44,510
- Total of 10 (shown) in top 100k.
But if we look at the countries I don’t do so well in: Japan, Brazil, Poland, Turkey, etc… are all a lot higher than some of my other ranks. So then the idea is to find websites with a strong userbase in that country and just go and advertise there. Whether it be posting in a forum, commenting on a blog, or buying space if you really want to, your Alexa ranking will rise in that country.
So if I see I’m not ranking well in Japan, the first thing I should think is: “Well, duh!” I’m obviously not going to rank well in Japan because first, I don’t write in the countries native language, I don’t write about anything Japanese nor have I ever mentioned the country for that matter and lastly Japan has a ton of internet users. Of all my Alexa visitors, Japanese users account for less than 2%, so I’m obviously not going to do well there.
So to improve there I could find Japanese websites, or Japanese targeted websites and just get my site out there. If the site has a good Alexa rank, there are bound to be a couple that will come my way.
The idea is simple, but executing may not be the easiest. Finding good sites to post on may be difficult, but sticking to blogs might help. Use Technorati to find blogs. Comment away, and if you try this, post back here and tell me your results. In theory it works, but until someone tries it, its just a theory. Dormant in my “Ideas” category 
Leave a comment
L3ggy
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:44 PM
I’ll have to remember this for me blog when i release it. Thanks Connor
Goob
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:58 PM
But for personal blogs, what’s the point of Alexa? Unless you’re either selling ad space, selling hardlinks to other sites, or thinking of selling off your site in the near future, Alexa does little for you.
Like you said, Alexa is pretty crap when it comes to accuracy and thankfully, some webmasters are looking at it less and less when it comes to pricing their ad space. I wouldn’t be so against it if they actually decided to stop shunning Firefox and Safari, but you think that boat would have sailed by now.
Connor Wilson
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 PM
FireFox is open source, yet Alexa still manages not to have a plugin, or toolbar. I’d gladly replace StumbleUpon with Alexa. But you’re right, if they haven’t managed by now, they likely won’t at all.
Oh wait, maybe they’re waiting for FireFox 4.0!
Tomos
June 7th, 2007 at 10:59 AM
Thank you, this is very usefull.
Ill have to remember this when I launch my new websites during the summer.
Mike
June 8th, 2007 at 7:14 PM
There is an extension for Firefox which does the job.
http://www.quirk.biz/download-searchstatus
It not only helps your Alexa rank but also gives you a whole heap of other information including Meta tag info for a page, keyword density and back links. Well worth installing.
Found your site via the Cutline Showcase, by the way. Nice changes. Really impressed.
Nathan
June 12th, 2007 at 11:18 AM
Whislt you say that Alexa is only yielding 15% of your visitors .. it is important to take into consideration that a lot of other websites will be hindered by this too.. so your rank probably wouldn’t change all that much
That’s just another inaccuracy I guess 
Connor Wilson
June 12th, 2007 at 3:25 PM
One thing you also have to take into consideration is the amount of pages each user is viewing. For example my 1 day rank right now is 38,765 mainly because my page views are so high (at 11).
Dmitri
August 27th, 2007 at 10:53 PM
I tried installing alexa bar and my NOD anti virus gave me a “virus detected” pop-up.
Does it have viruses?
Connor Wilson
August 27th, 2007 at 11:39 PM
No, it doesn’t. Make sure you get it right from Alexa.com, though.
Dmitri
August 28th, 2007 at 12:07 PM
I got it off download.com about 3 weeks ago.
I just downloaded the new version of it,off alexa and it’s great. No warnings. I don’t know… I know they used to have spyware a few years back,so maybe I downloaded an older version.
cheers
Connor Wilson
August 28th, 2007 at 1:43 PM
Download.com is like Spyware central, just so you know.
Classifieds
April 16th, 2008 at 10:30 AM
I hate download.com when i see download.com just close browser!
janni
April 29th, 2008 at 7:59 PM
First off, people need to understand that Alexa’s numercial ranking system is DEPENDENT on the number of Alexa toolbars users that visit your website. This should be an underlying understanding each time you view a website to gauge its traffic levels. If you ignore this, then your impression of a website can be incorrect. This is a very common mistake that people make, and ultimately find out the error in their judgement. Get the facts before you make a decision based on Alexa. Let Alexa guide you to the correct information, and consider its rankings an estimation of traffic levels a website may recieve in any given time period.
auswitch
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:00 AM
Hmmm, I have to check my Alexa rankings, thx for advices…
tanie linie lotnicze
July 25th, 2008 at 4:02 AM
Janni is right. It means, that Alexa have not always proper informations.
Don
July 27th, 2008 at 12:22 AM
That’s good to know Janni, an associate of mine mentioned the same thing to me and I was sure how accurate that was… Thanks!
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