Alexa Rankings to the rescue

Handy toolbar I recommend

Tuesday, January 18, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: Internet

I regularly get emails sent to me from websites that want free products to run as part of a "contest" or other promotion. We often do this kind of thing.  But the first thing I do is make sure I'm on a computer that has Alexa toolbar installed and hop on over there.

The reason I do that is that Alexa's toolbar will actually display the numerical ranking of a given website.  If it's ranked in the top 100,000 websites, it's very popular.  So with it, I can quickly find out the relative ranking of a given website.

Now, spyware programs report this program as Spyware. That's because, technically, it is.  The way it works is that it tells a master server what domains its millions of users have visited and that's how it compiles its rankings. But it's not Spyware in the negative sense, it's providing a valuable service to the net.

Give it a try for yourself. It has a serach bar in it too.  It also displays related websites which is also very invaulable.  So when I go to WinCustomize.com, it has links to Stardock, WindowBlinds, Deskmod, Skinbase, Deskmod, etc. all as part of the toolbar automatically because those are other sites that visitors here go to according to its user base.

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_02
Reply #1 Tuesday, January 18, 2005 9:39 PM
Alexa toolbar is considered spyware

Draginol
Reply #2 Tuesday, January 18, 2005 9:41 PM
Did...you...read...the...article? It's only 4 paragraphs...

Scarebear
Reply #3 Tuesday, January 18, 2005 9:48 PM


Anyhow, I don't use the toolbar, but like those same features on their website. Related links has often shown me sites I'd never heard of.

dharmagrl
Reply #4 Tuesday, January 18, 2005 9:49 PM
I have Alexa...you recommended it before so I went and looked at it, liked it, and got it.  I like that I can get real, unbiased information about the site I'm visiting on it, and it also offers me related links to go check out...all in all I'm very happy with it!  Thanks!

lilstarfish
Reply #5 Tuesday, January 18, 2005 10:09 PM
The question is, can you trust it?

I won't let it near any of my machines.

joeKnowledge
Reply #6 Tuesday, January 18, 2005 11:00 PM
Well, I uninstalled it by mistake because Spybot said it was spyware. I didn't look at the settings too deaply and deleted it.

But I have to admit, Alexa is pretty good at what it does. Pretty cool ranking system and the relative links are also pretty cool too. I also like the thubm nail look of some of the sites as well.

I guess I will re-install it.

They also had a affiliate toolbar to Amazon.com but I couldn't recomment it because I felt maybe it could be spyware. But I guess if you warn people about what it does, then they can make up their mind on using it or not.

Abanamore
Reply #7 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:02 AM
>>> But I have to admit, Alexa is pretty good at what it does


The trouble with Alexa is it only tells you the ranking of a site among users who use the Alexa toolbar, not among all websurfers. In other words, the only input to the rankings is from users who've installed the toolbar. Most users won't go near it because of its spyware rep, rightly or wrongly. Also most ordinary users won't install it because they could care less about the ranking of a site. Thus the rankings are extremely biased. And most more sophisticated users won't install it because it's just another clunky add-on........

Want to up your Alexa rankings considerably? Just install Alexa and visit your own site once or twice a day. Their user base is so small that, yes, even one user can make a big difference in the rankings. Try it, you'll see a large increase in your rankings over a week or two, without any concurrent increase in your actual visitors...

You know I love ya' Frogboy, but I don't buy into Alexa.....




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Abanamore
Reply #8 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:35 AM
its trustworthy...it reports the sites you visit; and you know it does.

but; you cant really trust the ranks, although..there is not really any other way of tracking a website's rank.. it is only ranked based on those who have the toolbar. a number of users which is getting smaller and smaller do to antispyware software.

alexa does no harm.. and i enjoy it as a service. but i also do not have its toolbar. google toolbar takes the space.
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Lotherius
Reply #9 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 4:02 AM
There's a FireFox extension that gives the thumbnails from Alexa.. Not sure if that gets counted in the rankings or not.

_02
Reply #10 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 10:05 AM
Yeah, I read it. I still believe it is spyware. All my antispyware programs label it Spyware. Since I paid good money for my programs I will follow their advice. It's kept my computer clean, adware,spyware, and virus free for many years now.

_02
Reply #11 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 10:06 AM
lilstarfish, I'm with you!

craeonics
Reply #12 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 2:29 PM
craeonics peeks

Look! Tek's climbed 382,531 places. We're in the top 1000000 now! Whoohoo!!

Makes you wonder how many sites are actually out there.

Frogboy
Reply #13 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 3:15 PM

Anyone who knows anything on statistics can tell you that you can get a valid sample with only a few thousand people. And Alexa's user base is  pretty large.

Is it precisely accurate? Obviously not.  But once you get inside the top 250,000 most popular sites it gets pretty accurate I would say.

Paranoid people won't use it of course. But that doesn't scew the results (unless you're going to argue that there is a special, magical site that paranoid people visit).  Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. are the top ranked sites with Alexa.


xtine
Reply #14 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 4:43 PM
Did...you...read...the...article?


HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I can almost hear the exasperation....


paxx
Reply #15 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 7:30 PM
Brad, if you're interested in statistics, you must know that to get a real valid result, you need a completely and truly random sampling. Alexa's sampling certainly isn't random, as it targets a very specific kind of people. Casual users won't install Alexa because, well because they don't know about it and they couldn't care less about it if they did. Most computer techies won't touch it either cause they tend to be paranoid about sending back "home" any kind of information. Actually, most Alexa users are probably people who are interested in statistics in the first place; they like to kow how sites rank comparatively to each other, etc. But truth is there is no way to determine exactly if Alexa users are a fair representation of the people in general. Alexa stats could never be used to say that such a site ranks top 1000 for all Web users. All Alexa can tell you is that such site ranks top 1000 among Alexa users. Saying any more than that is just a wild guess and has nothing to back it with. I believe you went to business school Brad, didn't you? I think I remember reading something about this from you. Could be wrong. But if you had stats classes in college, you already kow what I'm saying and you know that Alexa can't be used as a fact, and actually not even as a good enough estimation, as we have no idea if Alexa users have the same surfing habits as the population in general.

Gene Nash
Reply #16 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 9:26 PM
I'd rather call it "report-ware" than spyware. "Spy" implies stealth, secrecy, doing things without knowledge. You should be concerned about products that track you, collect your information without your knowledge, and report it back God-knows-where for God-knows-what. That doesn't describe Alexa. You know exactly what Alexa does and why. There's no secrecy. They tell you up front. They tell you what they collect and what they do with it. They're not spies, they're reporters.


The only quibble I have with Alexa is that when I have it visible it slows my creaky old wintel to a crawl. But I do have it installed.

Lantec
Reply #17 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 9:31 PM
I thought this was the magical site that us paranoid people visit.

Frogboy
Reply #18 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 11:51 PM

Paxx - I'm pretty in touch with statistical analysis (my statistical analysis on the Presidential election for instance led me to say on MSNBC last June that the election would come down to Ohio).

There is nothing to indicate that the web surfing habits of Alexa users are dramatically different than the web surfing habits of other people.

As a general tool for comparing the website popularity of Site A and Site B, it's pretty useful.

If Website A has a ranking of 500,000 and website B has a ranking of 50,000 you can be certain that website B is getting more traffic.

As with most samplings, there is a margin of error.  My view is that the margin of error on Alexa is well within the acceptable range for it to be an invaluable tool.  But if you know of a more accurate website ranking tool, please enlighten us.


Frogboy
Reply #19 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 11:53 PM

I thought this was the magical site that us paranoid people visit

Oh definitely not.  As soon as you logon, we send special camera enabling software that turns on a "user cam" that is secretly embedded in every monitor that most people don't know about. So even as I write this, we can look up any user and see what they're doing.

You really need to clean up that old pizza laying on your desk for instance...


BustinABogie
Reply #20 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 11:54 PM
It has a TAC (Threat Assesment) rating of "5" on LavaSoft's home page, which is up there. It mentions the reason it's classified as "spyware" is that it operates in stealth and that Internet Explorer "related links" feature does not disclose the use of Alexa.Link


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