Can Alexa be fiddled?

[jimmc]

Hi All,

I need some advice, this company or the people who built the site are promising me great things relying on the fact this site is so well placed on Alexa - Now what I want to know is can Alexa ratings be hiked using black hat or other jiggery pokery and is in your opinion this one???

I'd appreciate it of the name wasnt mentioned as I dont want to upset anyone if its kosher but would doubly appreciate ANY help on this one.

w-w-w-.-s-k-i-r-t-i-n-g-b-o-a-r-d-s-.-c-o-m take the hypens out for the name

Not sure if I should place this elswhere but I guess admin can move it?

Regards....

 

[springer]

"I believe that there are methods which will allow you to easily bring an Alexa ranking in the millions down to the 100,000 level. However, bringing it past the 10,000 or 1,000 mark is a considerably more difficult process, because of the stiff competition among websites.

Some have adamantly stated that there are no proven ways to game Alexa, while others have claimed that auto-surfs and scripts do work to some degree."

... 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank

 

[jimmc]

Thanks Springer, Should I post the alexa string so its easier for the better infomed than me to easily have a look??

I really need to have an idea as I'm supposed to be meeting with them on Thurs...

 

[rob]

I dont get the point of Alexa, I mean just looking at the sites in the top 1000 10,000 1,000,000 even would indicate the value of the rankings.

I mean is acorn really the 24,148th most visited site in the world? Or do most visitors here have lots of tools setup such as the alexa bar

Likewise A4u - 5,621st in the world ranking , traffic rank of 297th in the UK.

If you really want a laugh have a nose at the sitepoint marketplace where low alexa ranked sites go for peanuts.

What does that mean?! Nonsense.

Going by the name you posted it says it has the 8,845th traffic rank in the UK. If you look at your stats, do you think that is right?

 

[JMOT]

Would rather wet my finger and hold it in the air than rely on an Alexa ranking....

 

[retired_member13]

Like most automated systems, Alexa can be gamed & manipulated.

Alexa traffic rank is based on the statistical analysis of the browsing data of people who have the Alexa toolbar installed and are using it at the time of the visit. Data from Alexa users is then extrapolated up to represent the Internet audience as a whole.

As such, if someone wants to boost it they could try any of the following (with varying degrees of success lol):

- use redirected "traffic" sites.
- create pages within the site relating to Alexa or Alexa Ranking, in the hope that this is more likely to attract Alexa enabled users - any targeting of Alexa users in organic search will skew the Alexa rank enormously.
- try to ensure that during development & maintenance all work done / viewing of the site is done via Alexa enabled browsers, preferably terminating sessions as often as possible.
- try to get as many of their own target audience to use Alexa as possible through promoting it on the site in question.
- etc etc.

If you think about the likely core subset of people who use the Alexa toolbar (developers, webmasters, SEOs, coders, domainers etc etc) they are not exactly a Gallup Poll style cross section of all web users, and very likely quite different to the target audience of your (I'm assuming) DIY related site.

It's also worth remembering that there is a significant lag in Alexa figures (circa 3 months).

Of the above I'd say that redirection is probably the most common problem that I've seen on aftermarket domains with Alexa rankings. In terms of active sites it's probably a mix of them all - but active sites & blogs with technical content tend to outperform the market wrt Alexa due to the overlap of their users & Alexas.

Regards

BTW, try installing the Alexa toolbar on your machine and visiting one of your parked sites every day for 3 months... it can do wonders for your Alexa rankings... ;-)

Now what I want to know is can Alexa ratings be hiked using black hat or other jiggery pokery and is in your opinion this one???

 

[jimmc]

I mean is acorn really the 24,148th most visited site in the world? Or do most visitors here have lots of tools setup such as the alexa bar

If you really want a laugh have a nose at the sitepoint marketplace where low alexa ranked sites go for peanuts.

What does that mean?! Nonsense.

Going by the name you posted it says it has the 8,845th traffic rank in the UK. If you look at your stats, do you think that is right?

Rob thanks for this - I know that Alexa is used by techies in the main and most punters wouldnt even know what alexa is but this guy has done a selling job on my partner and the bottom line is there is part of the company at stake. I also know I can buy something on sitepoint for one and sixpence (who remembers that eh)

How do I find the stats youre talking about and how do I get get some real stats on their site. Plus what about google stats is there a more acurate way of finding out how much traffic and how valuable this site is.

If these guys are for real they could do a job for us but by the same token it could be a stich up!!

 

[jimmc]

Thanks jmot, great stuff ty. I would address you to my answer to Robs reply any ideas??

 

[getmein]

How do I find the stats youre talking about and how do I get get some real stats on their site. Plus what about google stats is there a more acurate way of finding out how much traffic and how valuable this site is.

Why don't you ask them to give you access to google analytics (if they don't have it, ask them to install it) - then you can see a) the traffic b) the keywords that are generating it. Go check the rankings for the keywords, check the adwords tool for the keywords - if the numbers make sense, then you can take a calculated risk. I would never buy a site based on alexa, stats are totally distorted towards tech users.

 

[retired_member13]

Jim,

Could you clarify what is being asked for here..?

Are you looking to buy the site you mention, or are you looking to buy the services of the guys that built/SEOd that site to do the same for one of yours?

If the latter, would the work you're having done be dev or SEO or both? Are you paying up front, on results or staged.. etc etc.

One thing that is true either way is that [domain keywords] appears to have a reasonable search volume and the site is currently #1 on G**gle.co.uk for terms, so it must get traffic.

Regards

Ty

 

[jimmc]

Jim,

Could you clarify what is being asked for here..?

Are you looking to buy the site you mention, or are you looking to buy the services of the guys that built/SEOd that site to do the same for one of yours?

If the latter, would the work you're having done be dev or SEO or both? Are you paying up front, on results or staged.. etc etc.

One thing that is true either way is that [domain keywords] appears to have a reasonable search volume and the site is currently #1 on G**gle.co.uk for terms, so it must get traffic.

Regards

Ty

Ty we're two thirds of the way through a project I've been working on for almost two years, its a very visible brand coming out of recession. These guys have recognised its a goer and want in. They say theyll do the seo work and finalise the dev plus get us all the traffic we'll ever need.

They want part of the business for doing it.

Regards, Jim.

 

[retired_member13]

I wouldn't go into partnership with someone on that basis personally unless I knew a lot more about what they were capable of and what they were going to do for their share.

They don't appear to have done anything earth shattering with moc.sdraoBgnitrikS as far as I can see, other than that it has a *lot* of spammy pages in the index and a fair few backlinks.

Site Explorer - Search Results

Maybe you should find out a bit more about them?

 

[IanTurner]

There are numerous ways of fiddling Alexa.

Sites with almost no traffic can be made to look okay by about half a dozen people fitting an Alexa toolbar.

If you want commercial grade spamming there are services available that can do that.