Why Maki’s list of ways to game alexa might be a bit dumb

Good(?) find, Stu. The original article’s ‘tips’ are almost painful to read.

My blog recently experienced a relatively big spurt of traffic and Alexa shows bugger all activity

Hey Will!

The sad thing is that this guy actually has some really good content and a lot of readers (with alexa ranks in the multi-millions (3, 4, and 5 million for a lot of them))

With an alexa rank that low, I would imagine any traffic at all would result in a significant leap in alexa rank.

If alexa floats your boat, I’ve shown in the last week and a half that with a little bit of effort, and some attention to detail with legitimate means such as commenting on other blogs, working hard on your posts, and promoting your site a bit you can drop your daily rank from mid-200,000’s down to around 50,000 for one day.

Interesting list. Number 2, installing the Alexa button, doesn’t seem to make much difference. At first I thought it did, but I tried it again a few months ago and infact my ranking dropped, so therefore the button being there made no difference whatsoever, besides telling the world your rank!

As for the toolbar, yesterday evening was the first time I installed it onto IE7. Must admit I only use IE7 for a couple of sites and occassional checking of how sites display, however I thought I’d have a look at it. However I didn’t realise having the Search Status extension for Firefox would do the same job, as I’ve had that for years.

As you say, if you write good, consistent content, people will come back. I saw my ranking start to improve when I started to get most posts out again. It makes sense, there’s nothing new, then your return visitors have got nothing else to read.

Unfortunately Alexa is a contibutor to the worth of your site along with PR. As we’ve discussed this week, both are stupid factors to use!

Nothing like waking up on a Sunday and finding your article being ripped to shreds by another blogger

Thanks for your comments Stuart and for your ten very useful tips.

I’ve never meant to say that having good content wasn’t necessary and all you had to do was to ‘game’ Alexa using the methods that I’ve suggested. Having great content and using the Alexa methods are not mutually exclusive.

Great content and standard blog SEO is the foundation from which every marketing or promotional method is built.I’ve written about this numerous times on other articles on my blog.

The fastest way to improve your rank is to simply attract the webmaster crowd or at least, the crowd that is savvy enough to know how Alexa factors in as an important element within monetization.

For more information on Alexa’s webmaster bias, I would suggest checking out Aaron Wall’s article, which I’ve referenced in my blog. It explains this in more detail. Peter Norvig’s article is interesting as well, for its emphasis on Alexa’s selection bias.

I do agree that if you’re in the millions or hundreds of thousands, it’s pretty easy to decrease the rank with any decent traffic. I’m not saying that it won’t.

I’ve not tried every method listed on the list, although I know others who have personally done so and the list was a result of their positive experiments.

I actually do know a whole bunch of bloggers who have improved their rank by simply installing the widget and following some other methods. They have blogged positively about it and I think you can find some of these articles by clicking through on the trackbacks on my post.

I’m not sure why you chose to omit the following section of my post but I’ll post it here just so put things into context.

“To increase your Alexa rank in the long term, I would suggest coming up with quality content which draws and maintains a large audience. This is an excellent way to passively increase your Alexa rank. ”

I’ve even suggested that the methods listed were contentious and the best way to effectively test the validity of them was to experiment with them. This was omitted from your article as well, for this reason.

Lastly, I’m not sure if you’ve seen my Copyright Regulations, but I really don’t like having more than 100 words of any article republished on other blogs. Writing these babies take a lot of time and effort on my part.

It would have been nice if you did let me know beforehand that you were reposting all 20 tips, even if your aim is mainly to trash my blog and the article.

Hi Maki,

Thanks for your detailed response!

My concern with the post was born out of the fact that by reading the comments in your post, there was a lot of bloggers who seem to be just starting out in this world. I am of the belief that they would be far better off trying to provide quality content and utilising off-page SEO than trying to trick alexa (and by extension, other people) into thinking that their blog had more traffic than it actually did.

I did read the article by Aaron Wall, he actually presents no statistical data to back up his assertion that webmasters are more likely to have the alexa toolbar installed. Just an assumption based on his personal experience.

I’m not sure why you chose to omit the following section of my post but I’ll post it here just so put things into context.

“To increase your Alexa rank in the long term, I would suggest coming up with quality content which draws and maintains a large audience. This is an excellent way to passively increase your Alexa rank. ”

You’re right, I should have included that. More an oversight than intentional. No excuse though.

Lastly, on your copyright regulations, no I didn’t read them (and I would suggest that the vast majority of your readers haven’t either). I apologise for this, and will pare down the post to your “100 word limit” if requested to do so.

It would have been nice if you did let me know beforehand that you were reposting all 20 tips, even if your aim is mainly to trash my blog and the article

The point of my post was to bring in to question some of the methods outlined in your post. Read the article again and I’m sure you will see there was no “trashing of your blog”. I actually like your blog, and have been reading for some time. This is why I was surprised by this particular post.

Speaking of copyright, are you suggesting that you will release the hounds of hell on anyone who steals your content, but on the same page have this?

All images on this blog and in each post are taken from screen shots of various anime videos. These videos and the characters within are not created by me and I do not claim ownership over them.

Can I steal your content then have a disclaimer like this:

All posts on this blog are taken from RSS feeds of various blogs. These posts are not created by me and I do not claim ownership over them.

Cheers mate

Stu

Spending this much time talking about alexa might be a bit dumb.

@ 45N5 - Touche!

Stu,

Perhaps an exaggeration from my end.. I don’t think you were really trashing the blog.. so apologies for that.

Your emphasis on content is well put and I do agree that one should focus on content when one is growing a site. No arguments about that. Over emphasizing on Alexa and tricking advertisers with a fake Alexa Rank is silly, I agree.

In the case of Dosh Dosh, the lowering of the Alexa Rank definitely has a lot more to do with consistent increase in daily traffic instead of just mere gaming. I get a LOT of search and referral traffic everyday. I am also very active on social voting websites as well as social networks and get a lot of regular traffic from there. Traffic has been increasing everyday since the blog started, which is rather satisfying

“I actually like your blog, and have been reading for some time. This is why I was surprised by this particular post.”

Well.. I’m really quite a grayhat at heart. So no real surprises. It’s hard to write for everyone and this is one of the posts where I just decided to put out what I know several fellow webmasters are doing for their Alexa Rank.

I do admit not all the methods are legit but I’ve already made sure that everyone knows my emphasis is on putting out quality comment. I’ve also suggested that everyone try the methods if they are so inclined to see that they work. It’s their personal choice if they want to invest time in these tactics or not. I leave it to them.

“Lastly, on your copyright regulations, no I didn’t read them (and I would suggest that the vast majority of your readers haven’t either).”

Hmmm… perhaps a generalization on your part. I might start linking it on a per-post basis though I really dislike the clutter.

Anime is rather interesting. I’m been struggling to determine how best to attribute screenshots from videos.. If you would just do a search on Google for ‘anime blogs’ or ‘anime’ you would notice that there are literally millions of weblogs and sites doing the exact same thing.. screenshots, mag scans and other stuff. Others have even watermarked these images.

It’s somewhat common practice for anime blogs to put up vid screencaps and I’m very sure that the anime creators are 100% aware of it.

I’ve been writing in an anime blog for several years and have sent hundreds of direct links (with traffic) to Japanese publishers, TV channels and toy makers and none of them replied with a copyright notice even though its very clear that I’m using screenshots.

It’s a tricky situation and I’m thinking of better ways to attribute the images. At the moment I’m sticking with this, but will change it if I come up with something better.

“All posts on this blog are taken from RSS feeds of various blogs. These posts are not created by me and I do not claim ownership over them.”

Well the only thing I can say for that is that I do have a clear copyright policy which prohibits syndication (beyond a certain limit) without permission. This alone would derail any claim that because I run a full RSS feed that someone can rip me off.

I do need to link my feed to my copyright policy.. so thanks at least for reminding me of that.

And yes, you can keep all my 20 tips up.. I’m not sure how you can have a cogent argument without them! ^-^

If you wanna chat further, feel free to hit me up on IM or email.. IM details are on the About Page on my blog. I’ve linked through to it in the URL..

If you wanna chat further, feel free to hit me up on IM or email

Do you both really want to miss out on the potential Alexa-ranking-improving power of an audience by moving it into a private medium?

“Do you both really want to miss out on the potential Alexa-ranking-improving power of an audience by moving it into a private medium?”

Not quite sure what you mean, Will?

Do you both really want to miss out on the potential Alexa-ranking-improving power of an audience by moving it into a private medium?

Will, that might have been the funniest (and most accurate) Alexa comment in this whole ordeal.

Good posts all of you- Alexa being BS or not, it sure sparked a great discussion.

ROTFL Chance!

I didn’t quite get Will’s joke but yes, it was a nice discussion.

I’m glad we kept it civil even though our opinions obviously differ on several points.

I love a good robust debate Maki, and am happy to be proven wrong.

Maki,

I was referring to your suggestion of moving this discussion to IM or email even though it’s obviously a popular topic that attracted a lot of traffic that has probably improved the Alexa rankings of both you and Stu.

I think you (both) should add controversy and debate to your lists!