What’s Your Alexa Digit Ranking?
As well all know, and I’ve written about many times in the past, Alexa is not very accurate but is useful. One thing I was thinking about is kind of an unwritten way to rank Alexa sites, unknowingly acknowledged by many. It’s your Alexa Digit ranking, or so I’m calling it. It refers to the amount of digits in your 3 month rolling Alexa rank.
For example, my rank as of right now is 196,199. That would give me a Digit rank of 6. Here’s the breakdown of how your site ranks. First find your rank, count the digits, then find your self here:
- 7 Digits (1,000,000-max): Your site has quite a poor Alexa rank. You likely receive very little, if any traffic. If you do, you are getting very few Alexa users. Widen your audience and offer something more to attract visitors. Your Alexa rank will eventually increase if you want it to.
- 6 Digits (100,000-999,999): Your Alexa rank is not bad. You are getting traffic and you’ve gotten out of the dreaded 7 digit zone. To the lower of this zone you are likely to be getting good traffic and be on the rise. At this point you should be starting to notice your rank and acknowledge it.
- 5 Digits (10,000-99,999): You’re in the top 100k! This means your website gets a good amount of traffic and a steady stream of Alexa users every day. This is the most broad region for traffic, while being relatively small in ranks compared to 7 digits. Sites in this region could be getting tens of thousands of hits a day, or one hundred!
- 4 Digits (1000-9999): By now you run a successful website and are getting a great deal of traffic. It is highly likely you’re seeing over a thousand unique visitors a day, likely much more. Sites towards the lower end of this scale may getting upwards of 50,000! Conrats on making it this far.
- 3 Digits (100-999): Your website has caught on throughout the web and people notice you. You are either offering a great service or run one of the most popular blogs on the internet. You receive so many hits that you’re likely to have more dedicated servers than hours in a day.
- 2 Digits (10-99): If you are in the two digit range, you are truly part of the web’s elite. You receive an unfathomable amount of obscene traffic and a link on your site will surely boost other sites into at least the 5 digit range. You have the power to put anything out to millions of people.
- 1 Digit (1-9): Your website is a household name. Google, Yahoo, MSN, MySpace, Facebook, Youtube. You probably will never read this site, so I’m going to take the time for use 2+ digiters and silently curse your success. You see billions each year, and for good reason too (except for MySpace).
So where do you rank? As a relatively low 6 digiter, I’m content but I see my rank on the rise. It won’t be long before I’m in the 5 digit range. I suspect most people rading this will be in the same boat. Except for the one Yahoo Yodel editor that came by one day. That was cool 
This scale can also be used to predict things like a site’s PageRank.
- 7-6 digits: Likely 0-5.
- 5-4 digits: Likely 5-7. (Except for porn sites. PR hates them :P)
- 3-1 digits: Likely very high, depending on how long they’ve been there. Around 7, but up to 10 (Google, Yahoo, Apple).
So if you have a site, you can show off your awesome Alexa rank here, or just shamefully admit it. No matter what it is, I want to hear!
Leave a comment
Mike
June 9th, 2007 at 11:01 PM
My current ranking is 308,737. Your post seems to be bang on with the page rank. Hopefully it gets a bit higher on the next update!
Razor
June 10th, 2007 at 2:19 AM
lol connor, alexa ranking is just bullshit. half my sites users dont use internet explorer so its a biased rank on my sites part.
Naresh
June 10th, 2007 at 2:41 AM
Nice article, though there are flaws with Alexa. I wish FireFox would incorporate it into their browser.
Andy
June 10th, 2007 at 6:03 AM
I’m six digits also. Never paid much attention to Alexa ranks though because people don’t tend to take them too seriously and I’m pretty sure I read before that they can be faked. It’s kinda interesting watching the top 100 sites though.
Connor Wilson
June 10th, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Only 16% of my visitors use IE, Razor.
Josh Buckley
June 10th, 2007 at 11:14 AM
Menewsha is coming closer to 5 digits. But, i really don’t care for alexa rating. Most of menewsha doesn’t work in ie. So, i persuade users not to use ie when visiting.
Nathan
June 10th, 2007 at 11:48 AM
I expect whether users use IE or not would depend greatly on the experience people have with computers.. I meet lots of different people who have no idea what FireFox is - or what a browser is - and so many just use what’s there on their computer …. Being windows usually, so it’s IE.
I would expect that many people who read this blog would be quite knowledgable on this ;]
Mike
June 10th, 2007 at 12:14 PM
Yeah, You should always try to make your website work perfect in both browsers!
If 15% of your visitors use ie Connor how is your alexa so low? You either get lots of traffic or beat the system somehow?
Connor Wilson
June 10th, 2007 at 12:27 PM
I do get a good bit of traffic, Mike, so it is inevitable that some will be using Alexa. Firefox was at one time 80% of all users for me, and it’s gone down to 67-68% lately, so it shows a more diverse cross section, browser wise.
I’m definitely not cheating any system here
L3ggy
June 10th, 2007 at 1:29 PM
It’s a pretty crap system if it only works for IE. IE == NOOB.
Connor Wilson
June 10th, 2007 at 1:41 PM
You’re just mad because you probably don’t even have an Alexa rank
It shows trends very well, so its not crap.
Andy
June 10th, 2007 at 2:40 PM
I agree on the support for Internet Explorer. A vast majority of users still use it and so support, at least on most website, is essential.
A quick Google can often find a fix to display issues within the browser. Although I can understand people who choose not to support it, it is very frustrating
Nathan
June 10th, 2007 at 4:31 PM
*Highlights the very frustrating bit* - I have used it in the past, but only to see how a website looks like in it.. and usually it’s way different to FF
but that’s life 
Connor Wilson
June 10th, 2007 at 4:39 PM
Yeah, IE definitely killed my inner child. It runs on a different display engine than Firefox, and I believe FF shares what’s called the Gecko engine with other good browsers like Opera (dunno), Flock and Camino.
Mike
June 10th, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Why cant they just get together and use the same stuff! It would make it easier for everybody!
My alexa dropped to 297k today!
Stuart
June 13th, 2007 at 11:14 AM
Firefox users are covered, too - there’s a plugin called ‘SearchStatus’ which I use in lieu of the Alexa toolbar.
Alexa ranking is far from useless, but it is *very* skewed. If you’re comparing within a similar sector, it’s a good comparative, but across different sectors there can be a lot of bias.
Connor Wilson
June 13th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
I use SearchStatus too, but I wasn’t sure if it was really reporting back to Alexa, more than just showing you the rank. I’m pretty sure Alexa doesn’t endorse it, though.
Geoff
June 14th, 2007 at 7:04 AM
I wouldn’t mind having a high alexa rating, but it’s only based on users with AOL or Alexa plugins or something I read elsewhere.
Angie
June 14th, 2007 at 9:05 PM
I’m not sure how I feel about Alexa. I have a blog in the 6’s and a couple in the 5’s. I cannot determine how valuable the ranking really is and I have been reading a lot about how people quickly manipulate the system.
Connor Wilson
June 14th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
Well Angie, it depends what you want your blog to do for you. If you want it to make you money (something I don’t ask of my personal blog) then Alexa counts.
Alexa is one of the few methods advertisers can use to get an idea of your traffic, so holds some weight. For instance, ReviewMe looks at Alexa, Technorati and your RSS readers.
Really, Alexa is useless to this site, but I still like it for the lone reason I’m a stats junkie >.<
Michael from Pro Blog Design
August 29th, 2007 at 10:54 AM
lol - Loved this post. Great novelty idea!
I’m in 6 digits too. Looking forward to getting down to a 1 digit someday…
Robert MacEwan
September 9th, 2007 at 7:01 PM
Only recently have I become an Alexa junkie after I install the Firefox extension that works on Linux. Ever since then I’ve followed Alexa rankings for sites.
Kinda worked myself into an Alexa chain smoking/ranking person. Instead of my hand raising to my mouth becoming second nature it’s my eyes shooting to the lower right of my browser window.
Vincent
September 14th, 2007 at 7:43 AM
Everybody says that google is the number one, but why is it ranked number 2 or 3 on alexa?
Connor Wilson
September 14th, 2007 at 3:28 PM
Because Alexa users prefer Yahoo, for whatever reason. Also, Yahoo probably has more page views per user, which weighs heavily on Alexa rankings.
Thomas Sinfield
September 16th, 2007 at 9:30 PM
I am a very high 6 digits, but looking at their stats it looks like it will cut to the mid 6 digits soon, which would be nice!
Robert MacEwan
September 17th, 2007 at 7:33 AM
Are there sites that provide Alexa ranking prediction?
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