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Why Is Alexa Important and Should You Install the Alexa Toolbar?

What is the Alexa Rank?

An Alexa Ranking is gained by the level of traffic a website receives, based on the number of people who visit the website, with the Alexa Toolbar (or Add-On) installed within their browsers.

Let's "Cut to the chase".

If you are a Website Owner, you cannot be taken seriously if you do not know what Alexa Ranking is all about - - even if you don't like it. So, read on. :-)

What Should You Install?

Since I first installed the Alexa toolbar, things have changed. It appears to me that Alexa offers two versions now, a full featured toolbar and a simple Status Bar Add-On.

Full Featured Toolbar Version:

The full featured version is similar to the reputable browser toolbars like Google, Yahoo, and Conduit offer - - they may even have a partnership with Conduit, not sure. It's certainly nothing like the garbage spyware toolbars, that collect data to maliciously add crap to your computer. Bottom line: looks like Alexa is trying to get a piece of the Google Search results pie, understandably. This is one good way to increase revenues online. And the full featured toolbar like most Conduit types, will offer more features.

FireFox Status Bar Add-On Version - - Jen's Preference:

This is by far my preference. It's non-intrusive, sits quietly in your browser Status Bar, and even has the normal menu options that will provide more stats about any website you visit. I don't need yet another toolbar in my way, at the top of my browser.

Alexa of course collects data, but only for the sake of ranking and demographics. I can assure you: Alexa is not going to take the chance of messing up their reputation by implementing a toolbar with any malicious spyware.

See Alexa's Explanation

The Simple, Long Explanation - - Why Is Alexa Important:

Supposedly, the lower your Alexa ranking, the more traffic your website gets. The perfect Alexa Rank is "1", not surprising if you think about it. "We're #1!" - - as the old saying goes. This would mean (only in theory), that your website receives more traffic than any other website on the entire Planet. Currently this rank is held by sites like: Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Live - - and in that order. As of this writing, Google is #1 and Live is #5.

It is generally considered that a website with an Alexa rating of 100,000 or less is receiving a good amount of traffic. Although generally, fairly "on-target", the Alexa Ranking can be misleading and manipulated. And, it must be mentioned: there is a significant amount of controversy about the topic. Some self-proclaimed Experts say it's not important. Well, I beg to differ. I say they are not Experts to make this kind of reckless statement. It's kind of like saying "Google is not the most well known Search Engine". I will give the naysayers this much: Alexa may not be the perfect solution to measuring a website's traffic levels or worth (to an extent) - - this I can agree. And, neither is the Neilson Family Ratings for TV - - I feel certain. However, so far, these are the best methods available. Make sense?

I'm not saying the Alexa Ranking is the be-all and end-all of the success of a website. But, I can tell you this. You will be hard pressed to find a reputable online service where you can buy/sell Ads, that will take you seriously as a Publisher (selling ads on your site), without your site meeting a certain threshold on Google Page-views, Alexa Rank, and Google Page Rank. Although most will accept you as a Publisher if you have enough Monthly Page-views, the Advertisers will see your published Alexa and Google PR in most all cases. Advertisers will rarely buy ads from a site with low: Page-views, Google PR, or low Alexa. And, who knows? This may not always be the case. But right now, Alexa is part of the puzzle and holding strong.

Alexa Trivia for JenSocial:

FYI: This site was formerly The Ning Directory at: http://theningdirectory.ning.com/ and at last count had an Alexa Ranking of 51k, and a Google PR of 4. As of May 12, 2010 the site is being redirected to JenSocial.com. Unfortunately (to my knowledge), neither of these rankings can be transferred. So, we have to start all over on building our Alexa Rank and Google PR. This stinks, no doubt. On the optimistic side of things - - I believe with the daily traffic we receive, it will only take a few months to get the numbers back. Let's hope so.

UPDATE: Just found a forum entry about merging Alexa data. It may be possible to merge the old Alexa information for the Ning Directory, with the new JenSocial domain. I'll report back what comes of this - - very interesting. But, my guess is: this probably just means demographic type statistics and not the actual Alexa Rank.

How Can You Help JenSocial?

If you are a regular site visitor, and have the Alexa toolbar or add-on installed, you will be a part of our rating family. Thank you in advance!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TheSoulProprietor on May 14, 2010 at 3:29pm

Very interesting. Didn't know any of this. Wish you would post a permanent copy of this in Network Tips or something, ....especially for those of us who tend to dilly dally our way to progress...

...yours truly, that is...

Joe

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on May 14, 2010 at 3:34pm

It is posted under the Group for Social Network Tips. Not sure if you noticed, but I added a new Group for all Social Networking Tips (the one we're in now), in addition to the Ning Networking Tips Group.

Did you want it to added somewhere else?

Best,
Jen

Permalink Reply by TheSoulProprietor on May 14, 2010 at 9:08pm

I must be losing it ...........I came here from a link in my E-Mail ...thought it was posted in Forums ....didn't even notice that we were in a group about tips ....wow is me. lol

Joe

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on May 14, 2010 at 9:33pm

No problem Joe. Believe me, I understand.
Have a great weekend,
Jen

Permalink Reply by erica on May 29, 2010 at 11:35am

thanks for this info! Very interesting. I'm not familiar with Alexa. A couple questions:
1. Do my users have to install the Alexa toolbar in order to get Alexa ratings, or for their visits to "count"?
2. Is the benefit of using Alexa primarily to get better ratings to get advertisers to buy ads on your site? (If there are no ads on the site, is there any benefit of using Alexa?)

Thanks!

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on May 29, 2010 at 12:07pm

You've got it. Alexa helps you gain creditability with Advertisers, Internet, and probably website worth.

Yes your users would need to install for their visits to count. If you have a good relationship with members, you might could ask them to install it and explain that they would be part of your "Nielsen Family" on Ratings. But, most website owners probably don't ask members to install Alexa - - at least, I don't think. Unless you're a site like JenSocial, where the Alexa helps everyone - - due to this site promoting your Social Networks, I'm not sure about asking members.

I'm just giving you a "feel" for the Industry standards and methods on something like this.

Having Alexa installed on your computer and any Admins is really helpful for your Alexa Rating.

Hope this helps,
Jen

Permalink Reply by erica on May 29, 2010 at 1:32pm

thanks for the clarification!

Permalink Reply by El Surveyor on June 13, 2010 at 9:49pm

how do you install the Alexa metatag to a ning network? thanks Jen

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on June 14, 2010 at 12:12pm

You probably need to ask Ning about this one. The only meta tag options I know of are the regular meta tags for site name, description and keywords - - via Manage/Update Information.
Best,
Jen

Permalink Reply by Anthony on October 22, 2010 at 11:06am

I once depend on fireFox mainly to get website status...I now use Google chrome and whatever I need they mostlikey have a plugin. One such plugin is the Google Chrome SEO, one click and I get the page rank, how many page index in Yahoo, MSN and Google, Alexa page links, and ranks, Google page links, Yahoo page links.

Google Chrome SEO will gives you Alexa data plus more, even from site like compete.com...One click and I can tell how popular Jensocial is.

Checkout Google Chrome SEO here https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/oangcciaeihlfmhppegpdce...

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on October 22, 2010 at 12:27pm

Thanks Anthony!

Nice tip. I appreciate your input.

Best Regards,

Jen

Permalink Reply by Seye on November 12, 2010 at 9:54pm

Jensocial is fast becoming my number one social site these days. And I know I am contributing to the traffic too- (Smile!). I use SearchStatus. I encourage some of my committed members in the chat room to use it too. It is addon for Firefox. It sits quetly at the bottom of your browser. I love it. And it can be downloaded here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/321