Written By Michael Fleischner
If you’re a big fan of Alexa rankings, you may have noticed some significant changes during the last few weeks. In fact, every website’s Alexa ranking has changed based on a new and improved ranking methodology.
When Alexa began displaying rankings about ten years ago, it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. They generated the rankings through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use the Alexa Toolbar. Since that time they’ve seen that the Alexa Rankings have become a yardstick by which website popularity is measured. In recent months Alexa users thirst for knowledge beyond Internet usage outside of the Alexa Toolbar was increasingly of interest. This is the fundamental reason for a revision in Alexa methodology.
Alexa’s new rankings system is much closer to what users want. They now aggregate data from multiple sources to give everyone a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.
Below are a few common questions Alexa anticipates from the Alexa community, along with their answers.
My site’s ranking has changed. Was it wrong before?
Your ranking wasn’t wrong before, but it was different. Alexa toolbar users’ interests and surfing habits could differ from those of the general population in a number of ways, and we described some of those possible differences on our website. While the vast majority of sites’ rankings were unaffected by such differences, we’ve worked hard on our new ranking system to adjust for situations in which they could matter.
The new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users.
Will Alexa change the rankings again?
Alexa is constantly working to ensure that we provide the most useful data that they can. They will continue to fine tune their algorithms but don’t foresee any additional big changes.
I liked the old rankings better. Are they still available somewhere?
A lot of people liked the old rankings. However, Alexa has developed the new system in response to the huge number of requests they received from users. Having more than one ranking system at a time would be confusing, so Alexa has removed the old rankings.
The change to the Alexa algorithm is a good thing. It’s much more comprehensive and accurate, expanding beyond the traditional Alexa panel. If you’ve checked your Alexa rankings since the change, you’ll notice a change in ranking – let’s hope you’ve benefited!
About the Author
Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert with more than 12 years of marketing experience. To see a marketing expert picture or discover how to improve search engine rankings on Google and other major search engines, visit http://improvesearchenginerankings.blogspot.com
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