Alexa boom and bang!

Posted on April 18, 2008
Filed Under InfoBlog, Site Traffic

It’s all over the news - and almost everywhere. The announcement of the new Alexa Ranking system is probably one of the hottest news in the whole of blogosphere. And it did rocked the boat and created a loud noise.

It created what is aptly called an “Alexa boom and bang!” effect. Why? For the obvious reasons that most blogs’ Alexa ranks were affected, mostly bringing down the rankings of these sites.

A quick information for newbies and people who are not familiar with Alexa ranking.

While others are not after Alexa ranking, more sites, mostly blog sites, have been working hard to earn a good Alexa rank. The smaller your rank number, the better is your site in terms of reach and hits. Alexa popularity is now a standard in getting the most favorable advertising rates from prospect advertisers. The higher is your Alexa rank, the higher the advertising rates you can command. Because it means you get lots of visitors and page views to your site.

But this new ranking system from Alexa is what most people have been asking for a long time, since Alexa started its ranking system in 1998. So what was wrong with the old ranking system then? While Alexa in its announcement does not agree that the previous ranking system was a bit flawed in some sense, they now consider more data sources to measure a site’s traffic popularity other than just based on internet users who installed the Alexa toolbar. As stated in their website, “The new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users.”

How does the new Alexa Ranking system affects blog (and Bloggista.com in particular)?

Most webmasters and bloggers noticed a change in their site’s/blog’s Alexa ranking on April 16th 2008, and then Alexa confirmed through their site announcement that they have rolled out a new ranking system indeed. A quick search at the Alexa website, I noticed a big drop of some of my fellow bloggistas’ (blogger friends) Alexa Rank. Most of these bloggers’ Alexa Ranks were under 100K - a goal which Bloggista.com is aiming to reach by the 5th month of blogging, however, with the new ranking system, most were down by 50K to as high as 100K, hitting back to the 150k to 200K Alexa rank.

Bloggista.com’s Alexa Rank prior to the new ranking system was at 182K. And it did dropped to 195,973 after that. How do I see it? Not much, in fact, I must say that for several weeks now, I have been quite successful in getting more organic hits to Bloggista. Traffic to Bloggista.com is now at 50% from search engines, 15% Stumbleupon, 15% Entrecard and the remaining 20% from other sources such as partner sites and regular non-entrecard visitors. So the new system may have not affected my Alexa rank as much as it affects others.

A number of other ‘well established’ blogs as well did not experienced that much ‘change’, thanks to their solid traffic hits from loyal visitors and subscribers, as well as organic hits from search engines. These are the kind of hits and traffic generation that Bloggista.com should be able to achieve - and it require lots of hardwork and creativity.

How does the new Alexa Rank system affects your blog’s ranking? Did it brought your site’s rank down or improved your rank instead? By how much?

Your comments will be greatly appreciated.

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Comments

16 Responses to “Alexa boom and bang!”

buyers web on April 18th, 2008 6:32 pm

What do you think of alexa’s new ranking system…it seems to be doing better i reckon for search results…
Matt Keegan on April 19th, 2008 1:00 am

Every one of my blogs benefited from the Alexa change, so I am glad. It is unfortunate that some advertisers put so much weight on the Alexa system, but that is what they use so we must adjust accordingly.

Matt Keegan’s last blog post..By: The Article Writer - MyBlogLog
Deimos Tel`Arin on April 19th, 2008 7:45 am

Terrible.

New Alexa Ranking is ridiculous.

Sites with much lesser traffic is better ranked than mine. -_-

Deimos Tel`Arin’s last blog post..Silent Thoughts - Say goodbye to yesterday
Dave from Welcome Back Rosenthal on April 20th, 2008 1:28 am

Like mine! I did great with the Alexa lately-but I wrote about a “system” I used. And they system was not affected by the new ranking math.

Dave from Welcome Back Rosenthal’s last blog post..Wordpress 2.5 is Not Nearly as Ugly if You Use the Fluency Interface
bloggista on April 20th, 2008 2:17 pm

@Matt, good for you. In my case, I need to check my Alexa ranking for the next 3 to 4 weeks and try to find out how it affects the pattern by which my alexa rank has been progressing since starting 3 months ago.

@Deimos, I too was surprised by how Alexa affected yours and the others as well. That’s totally insane from under 50K then back to 160K. What could have happened?

@Dave, your Alexa case seemed to be very popular. Let’s see how this new rank system works in the coming weeks.
liza on April 21st, 2008 4:33 am

hi! feel free to join. just let me know when you’re done so i can subscribe and comment

happy monday!

liza’s last blog post..Sleep Triggers Fatigue
bloggista on April 21st, 2008 5:43 am

@ Liza, great! Thanks a lot. Will let you know.
Life on Mars on April 21st, 2008 2:26 pm

Alexa, alexa, I have a high alexa ranking, so no worry,
Life on Mars’s last blog post..MAERSK LINE - WORLD’S LARGEST CARGO SHIP
bloggista on April 21st, 2008 3:11 pm

Very impressive stats you got there Mr. Richard. Especially your traffic and feeds subscribers.
chinardf on April 22nd, 2008 4:42 pm

My alexa is drop, strange.

chinardf’s last blog post..By: Kung Fu Tea | China
alexa toolbar & widgets ranking on May 8th, 2008 4:50 pm

I heared the announcement that alexa has changed its ranking algorithm. I am little happy with this change because my website got little improvment. see new alexa ranking for http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?url=www.fortunehotels.in Fortune Park Hotels Ltd.

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