Alexa Traffic Rank: Why Most Bloggers Insult It For The Wrong Reason

So many people slander the Alexa traffic ranking system. It is generated by the number of people visiting a site who are using the Alexa toolbar. With sites such as this one where the readership is ‘web-savvy’ they are more likely to use the toolbar than for example an airsoft gun blog. This means the rankings are skewed in favour of web/tech/blog related sites.

I argue that this is irrelevant.

Why Alexa Matters To Bloggers And Advertisers

Bloggers value their sites Alexa rank because a higher ranking allows them to charge higher advertising rates or even to make more from a blog flip (selling a blog).

Advertisers buy exposure in a certain niche. If I were looking to buy an add spot I would compare Alexa ranks with your blog and other blogs in that niche to help form a judgement as to where to advertise. It does not matter if the rankings are skewed in favour of certain niches, because it is the difference between individual sites in that niche that matters.

The Real Reason Alexa Is Inaccurate

Most people say the above reason is why Alexa cannot be trusted. The real inaccuracy comes with the standard way the ranking is presented by bloggers.

Blogging Fingers currently has an overall Alexa rank of 71,765. This is a 3 month average, but Blogging Fingers isn’t even 3 months old! It seems a bit unfair that my average is being dragged down from the days when this blog was brand new. It’s rank for yesterday was 23,094.

This is the ranking advertisers should be looking at (or perhaps the weekly average rank, which is currently 37,949). It is a realistic representation of Blogging Fingers traffic in comparison to other blogs in this niche.

The inaccuracy therefore is that it is the norm for bloggers to display their 3 month average traffic rank, when a fairer figure would be the 1 week average. Blogs are unusual in this respect because they grow so fast. You only have to take a look at the Alexa graph for Blogging Fingers to understand that.

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