Today I thought I’d share the results of my recent quest to increase my Alexa ranking to under 100,000.
This is really wordy and detailed. If you like to live vicariously then you’ll enjoy reading this. If you just want to know how to get a better Alexa ranking, skip this post and come back tomorrow when I share what worked for me in a less verbose format.
Two things you should know
First, I’m not terribly obsessed with my Alexa ranking.
I didn’t even pay it too much attention other than an occasional glance (okay, almost daily at first, then I got annoyed and it became every few days, then once a week) until this experiment.
Second, my reason for deciding to see if I could boost it is childish.
Many bloggers work on their Alexa ranking so that they can sell advertising on their blog, since advertisers often look at Alexa rankings. That’d be a reasonable motivation. I don’t accept advertising on this blog, but I do enjoy a challenge and saw a mention somewhere that if your blog isn’t ranked below 100,000 at Alexa… well, the person didn’t think it was worth reading.
I think Alexa rankings are wildly unreliable for all but the top blogs (which Alexa admits themselves), and a poor way to determine a blog’s quality (try HubSpot‘s score instead if you really MUST score yourself and can’t tell from your traffic, comments, subscriptions and sales if your visitors find your blog worth reading).
It’s not bad to have a high Alexa rating. It’s awesome if you do. But like so many “measurements” I don’t think it’s the only way to figure out who’s worth reading. Ask your friends. Google the questions you’ve got and see who’s answering them. Some of the smartest business people I know, even some who’ve made 7 figures in their businesses, have terrible Alexa rankings for their websites. I’d be crazy to reject learning from them for that reason alone. But on the other hand, sites that DO have great Alexa rankings probably are worth reading.
Personally I’ve learned there are many hidden treasures in blogs around the internet with low traffic, or low Alexa rankings, and a low Alexa ranking doesn’t meant terrible content or no traffic is hitting a site. I know my traffic stats and I know they aren’t what Alexa thinks they are. I also track my stats so I can see the ups and downs and it’s not very close to matching Alexa’s ratings of my rankings as it moves up and down. But the post about not being worth reading irked me enough to get me to take action and see just how difficult it would be to get a better ranking.
And with all that out of the way, here’s the summary version. On 3/15/2011 my Alexa rank was 185,271. By 4/26/2011 I was under 100,000. Now it’s bouncing around 60,000. My traffic is only slightly higher than it was a couple of months ago, with the exception of two spikes in traffic from one post that got big attention on StumbleUpon and one that got super-shared on Facebook. Two spikes of traffic, while totally awesome, couldn’t have made that much of a long-term difference in Alexa ranking… one didn’t even reflect in my traffic graph on their site, the day when the most traffic hit showed the same traffic as the rest of the days that week (and it was several times higher according to my own stats).
I’m top 100,000 now so I suppose I’m “worth” reading. But seriously, nothing’s changed around here. Well, I may have a slightly bigger head. But same traffic patterns, same content, same me sitting at my computer blogging.
Step by Step to Under 100,000 on Alexa
Here’s a fairly detailed account if you’re interested in getting your own Alexa ranking higher. This is a stream of consciousness sort of account, not polished or fancy, just what went through my head at the time and I wrote it down.
3/15/2011 – Alexa Rank 185,271
- Googled ways to increase Alexa ranking, found that I am already on the right track according to most advice…
- posting content regularly
- guest posting on other blogs
- building links to my site
- Added Alexa widget to the sidebar (following advice in this post)
- Installed Alexa toolbar
- Claimed my site listing on Alexa.com’s website
3/16/2011 – Alexa Ranking 184,601
- Asked fans from my Facebook to consider leaving a review on my Alexa page:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/michelleshaeffer.com - Started looking for guest blogging opportunities to build additional incoming links
3/17/2011 – Alexa Ranking 184,360
- Nothing specific, added a new blog post
3/18/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 184,267
- Nothing specific, added a new blog post
3/19/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 186,670
- Realized not taking specific actions isn’t helping my quest.
- Researched places to submit guest posts that make the process easy, have good Alexa scores, and some that I’d just like to be published at:
- http://esbjournal.com/submissions
- http://selfgrowth.com
- http://www.technshare.com/write-for-us
- http://socialmediatoday.com/how-to-post
- http://www.seomoz.org/ugc
- http://ideamarketers.com
- Interesting list here: http://piggybankpie.com/guest-blogging/101-blogs-that-accept-guest-posts/
- Also noted I should post more on http://www.solo-e.com where I’m an expert.
- And side note, I need to work on building more incoming links. Alexa currently finds 37 links to my site.
3/20/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 186,356
- Setup an account with SelfGrowth.com and submitted two articles
- Setup an account with seomoz.com
- Submitted an article to SocialBrandWagon.com
- Remembered that I have a Hubpages.com account, logged in and spruced up one of my hubs, plan to create another one or two soon http://hubpages.com/profile/MichelleShaeffer
3/21/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 185,546
- My first guest article is live at SocialBrandWagon.com
- Traffic is hitting my site from the EscapeYourRole.com promo I’m participating in
3/25/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 186,something
- SelfGrowth.com approved my two articles.
3/26/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 183,842
- Alexa changed my ranking a bit, but they don’t show that they’ve noticed any new links.
- Noting that even with the Alexa javascript on my page their traffic graph doesn’t match mine (using Google Analytics, WordPress.com Stats, and awStats)
3/27/2011 – Alexa Ranking, 183,842
- Changed my theme to use the Genesis Framework, mostly because I keep hacking Gazette and I know eventually it’ll need upgraded and be a mess so better to just switch to Genesis now and make upgrades easy on myself.
- Reworked by blog front page and side bar as well as navigation.
3/28/2011 – Alexa Ranking 173,979
- Wow. Interesting jump of nearly 10,000. My traffic is steady for the last two weeks. I wonder if Alexa likes my new theme (kidding–I don’t think that really affected it, other than maybe it’s helping my SEO which is sending more traffic) or if they’ve found new links to my site? Maybe adding the javascript that lets them track traffic is finally helping?
3/29/2011 – Alexa Ranking 170,386
- Didn’t do anything except blog.
- Noticed this (see purple arrow below) on the Alexa graph for my site — am I in the top 100,000 right now? If so, this is very interesting since my traffic is up, but not dramatically, it’s been more of a slow, steady climb over the last year. February was higher than January, and in their charts, February doesn’t show at all.
3/30/2011 – Alexa Ranking 168,684
- Didn’t do anything except blog.
- Decided to write a post asking for advice on Alexa because I’m feeling lost.
4/5/2011 – Alexa Ranking 161,463
- Ultimate Blog Challenge has started. This just means I’ll continue blogging daily, or near daily, and that for the next month I’ll be commenting on a heck of a lot more blogs. I won’t bore you by adding a note here every day that I blogged. Just assume I’m blogging at least once a day through the end of April.
- On commenting, maybe the backlinks will help my ranking. We’ll see. I know I’ve got more than 37 links to me but Alexa hasn’t updated. I read somewhere they update every 3 months. No idea if that’s accurate.
- I also notice my 1 month ranking is 118,055 and for the past 7 days it looks like I’ve stayed under 100,000.
- I’m not checking my ranking as often because it was bouncing around so much I was getting a little cranky. Up 1,000, down 1,500, up 1,200, down 800, you get the idea.
4/11/2011 – Alexa Ranking 144, 244
- Several other blogs have linked to me over the past week or so. None are showing in Alexa’s link count yet but eventually they’ll find them.
- Posting every day still.
- Traffic is up a bit, not a big jump, but steadily growing.
- PostRank is measuring a nice improvement in engagement (tweets, comments, interaction).
- The graph is showing me as in the top 100,000 for the past 2 weeks. Looks like I’m at about 40,000 today. My one month rank is at 88,899.
4/13/2011 – Alexa Ranking 134,901
- Getting slightly bored and annoyed with tracking such a fluctuating rank. It definitely doesn’t match any of my traffic graphs (wordpress.com stats, Google Analytics, or awStats).
4/24/2011 – Alexa Ranking 109 something
- I got busy with the Ultimate Blog Challenge and forgot to track my rank. It’s gone down by about 25,000 spots. I’ve been commenting on a lot of other blogs and my traffic is up.
4/25/2011 – Alexa Ranking
- Just noticed Alexa’s finally updated the linking sites and now shows 50 sites linking to me. No major change in ranking. It’s the same as yesterday.
4/26/2011 – Alexa Ranking 99,536
- Success! 3 month ranking is now under 100,000.
- I’m wondering if the update to links helped push my ranking down. It dropped by 10,000 within a few hours of them showing the additional 13 links. Yay!
4/30/2011 – Alexa Ranking 97,576
- Completed the Ultimate Blog Challenge – 30 new posts in 30 days (almost daily) and commented on more blogs this month.
5/1/2011 – Alexa Ranking 94,617
- Here’s where I’m at now. One month ranking is down to 53,337. I’d love to get my three month ranking under 50,000.
5/9/2011 – Alexa Ranking 86,325
- Submitted a couple of guest posts to sites I write for.
- Have been commenting on more blogs since the end of the Ultimate Blog Challenge (ironic, I know, but now I have more time).
5/10/2011 – Alexa Ranking 84,380
- My ranking continues to drop lower even though traffic is down a bit because I haven’t been blogging daily.
- Monthly ranking is up only slightly which does reflect less traffic.
- I think long-term averages matter a lot and once you get into the top 100,000 it’s probably easier to stay there. My traffic patterns still haven’t changed that much overall in the last 2 months.
6/28/2011 – Alexa Ranking 62,340
- Over the past 6 weeks or so my ranking has bounced around a lot from 100,000 to 62,000.
- I’ve blogged consistently — usually every 2-3 days.
- I’ve continued getting articles and guest posts published.
- I’ve continued commenting on other blogs and building links to my blog.
- See my current ranking at http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/https://michelleshaeffer.com
I wanted to wait a bit after the end of this experiment just to make sure my ranking stayed in the top 100,000 before I posted the details.
Tomorrow I’ll post about the top things I think helped me drop my ranking and then the post after that I’ll share how to really measure your blog’s authority and success.
Your turn!
Have you ever gone on a quest like this for a slightly silly reason? :)
Or, got any thoughts you want to share about Alexa or measuring blog success in general?
Photo Credit: monkey business
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Hi Michelle. I’ll follow all of your advice.
My Alexa Traffic Rank is going down fast. From being inside the top 100,000 for a long time it went to 202,000 in a month. My traffic is better than ever (visits, pageviews, hits), but as you say, the advertising depends on the Aleza Rank, so I’m losing money …
Thanks for the post, I hope it helps my blog.
I think Alexa changed the way it ranks pages but I’m not sure.
I haven’t started monitoring my Alexa ranking yet but I think that’ll be coming soon. There is so much information to take into account. This is very exciting.
In my opinion, Alexa ranking is important. That’s because it’s the only third party review that advertisers put some value on. If a website has quality content, but low Alexa ranking, the site owner will have trouble getting ads. Normally, sites with ranking under 100000 is safe
A really comprehensive guide. Love it!
Interesting post on Alexa ranking. I have always thought that the ranking is equivalent to Traffic. Your post gave me great new insights. Thanks!
Hi there, I first read your blog about July 1 and figured I’d give it a go. I too added the Alexa toolbar and badge. I wrote comments on a few forums that interest me, and I certified my website. I also have a rafflecopter happening which is generating a lot of traffic and comments. Here’s my breakdown. Although I wrote the numbers down each day, I won’t post all of them but you’ll get the idea.
July 2 – 4.2 million
July 15 – 3.3 million
July 20 – 2.1 million
July 26 – 1.5 million
Aug 2 – 1.3 million (I then went through the Google Authorship verification and had my website, youtube, Google + etc verified)
Aug 9 – 989K
Aug 12 – 858K
Aug 16 – 762K
Aug 18 – 707K
Certifying your website and installing the toolbar, badge and google verification really helps. Thank you so much for the tips.
RJ Parker
http://www.rjparker.net
Excellent article! I’ll try to do that and see if I can get my rank bellow 100K too! :D Thank you
Thanks for the wonderful, article, I am currently working on a few sites and wanted to see how can we boost our ranking, this article has been of great help.
Hey Michelle, Alexa is one tool I must say is very unreliable but what the heck?! If you desire to attract advertisers, you must take it serious though. I must however mention that the day I realized that Alexa only counts visitors with the Alexa toolbar installed, I personally took it less serious!
Hello Akaahan – Once upon a time, Alexa counted traffic only via their tool bar, but I believe that has long-since changed, and now their analytics rely on more than just Alexa tool bar users. They source their data from a “global traffic panel” as per their website.
Having said that, I don’t worry about my own Alexa ranking really, and I have only slowly, organically improving, over my four years of blogging.
I think fundamentally, a major tenant of this article – regular posting of fresh content – a key to success.
Just my two cents. I’m no expert!
Awesome article Michelle. I have recently begun tracking these numbers myself. I have am definitely planning to implement what you outlined here. I do blog fairly consistently, but I am still not seeing what I think should be an appropriate amount of traffic for the amount of effort it takes to get everything scheduled out for month/quarter.
Will share what happens!
Lisa
Awesome post with the complete case study, Love it.
awesome information! I’m also on the lookout on Alexa ranking and site linking in. Thanks for the tips!
This is a great post Michelle! I realize it is old but a lot of it still applies. I am adding your site to my list of resources. Looks like your staying in the low 50,000s now :) I don’t think it’s ever been proven how Alexa helps you, other than to get a good Alexa ranking means you have been doing the right work and are head in the right direction. Guest posting, commenting, content on a regular basis, getting link backs, etc.
Wow, well done and great information! I hadn’t quantified the importance of the Alexa rankings but as you pointed out, it’s much more than just monetary gains through advertising. Thanks for laying out the plan for the rest of us.
Nice post, doing well with alexa too, hope to get to under 100k in a month am currently in 100k.
Very Nice & Detailed Tutorial. Thank You Very Much.
Great article Michelle actually I just set-up my Alexa account and put the meta code in my website now looking to improve my Alexa Stats but what I like that you are right it does not mean if any website having not good stats then it does not mean you are offering low quality content or your website is not getting decent traffic. Good to learn some valuable tips about Alexa.
I like that you did this just as a challenge for yourself. I’m working my Alexa ranking down, but am currently around 300k. I’m aiming to get into the top 100k by Christmas and will start implementing some of your tips. Thanks.
Alexa ranking does not particularly impress me, though it would be nice to visualize that I am “playing the game”.
I confess, I do look at my rank. I have a lot of work to do to improve. Thanks to you willingness to share how it can be done, I know I will get there. (I am still working on cleaning up typos and centering images.)
I like quantcast better than alexa :|
I loved all the information in this article. I will be implementing what I have learn here and hope to draw great traffic as well
Thanks for this article. I’ve been wondering what I could possibly do to help me quickly get my blog rankings better on Alexa. I did notice something interesting. There is a site that I just created with Optimize Press that is killing it over my other two blog sites. I’m wondering if I should change the theme. But your article seems to suggest just to get busy blogging. Interesting stuff. Thanks.
Good information. Thanks!
Awesome!!! This is really helpful. Thank you very much.
Vishnu
http://how2doit.in/
Thanks for the awesome post on telling us how you had improved your Alexa ranking to less than 100,000.
Your article and journey are priceless to us!
I will follow some of your way to improve my Alexa ranking too :)
Very nice insights. What is weird about Alexa is that I have been hovering at 250,000 between 238,000 and 270,00) but cannot understand why it goes up or down. Sometimes I have a lot of visitors to my blog when I post for a few days and it does not impact Alexa.Also, in my range it is hard to improve and it looks like I am drifting backwards even when I have a lot of traffic due to a new post.What are your thoughts on this?Have they changed their rules recently.
I noticed that in chasing your Alexa rank, you were doing all the right things to improve SEO and pageranking, as considered by the Search Engines. So even if the Alexa ranking is a vague indicator it shows webmasters and SEO who undertake the correct behaviour. Also if you entered the top 100k another site must have been pushed out. :)
i will work on this also. I have already started many of these steps. Just under 1 million, so I have a ways to go… http://www.newschoolofmusic.com
very very very nice lesson to me… thanks michelle :)
im indonesian blogger…
http://rezkyjoe.blogspot.com
Great post and a nice journey you had a long way to get to where you are today..
I guess i should start that too its important not only because the Alexa rank is higher but its an indication (if you are doing this correctly like you) that you are on a good path into building a better base for your blog and more traffic…
Interesting post. Things do seem a bit random other than frequency of posting. I know people with ranks under 100,000 and they post maybe twice a month. They do have more longevity though. Guess that counts. Thanks for sharing.
I really need to follow the things you’ve done, my ranking now is above 2M. I will let you know if there is any improvement on my site, http://www.theslambookproject.com. Thanks for this wonderful post.
Great stuff provided… But i have one question in my mind, i tried a lot by increasing my posts, i have 5 posts per page and have 18 pages, which means total of approx. 92 posts and my alexa rank is 18,000,00. But when i see some of the blogs having 92 same posts but with alexa rank under 1,000,00… What should i do????
I found your article really helpful with facts and figures you have shown.Really appreciate your efforts.Thanks I want to increase alexa web ranking on my blog at http://www.thewebthinkers.com
Chasing SEO and Alexa rank sure seems like a lot of involved work and time, but seems to be necessary since I found that quality content alone is not enough to propel a site to big numbers of traffic. Thanks for these tips.
Honestly a great post !
While Alexa may or may not be the yardstick for everything – it sure does provide you some kind of a guidance on which way you are headed. If not for anything else, we think that it is worthwhile to keep a tab on this and do what is necessary for improving it.
Thanks again for a excellent post.!
Wow Michelle. This is great article . I do always wander about this alexa ranking.. I have a niche blog with frequent post but the alexa ranking rather stays above 15m mark and on the other hand another blog with only post of once in two weeks but shoot down to below 10m mark. You are right , it is the keyword that can make a blog improve its ranking.
This is a great post Michelle! I realize it is old but a lot of it still applies. I am adding your site to my list of resources. Looks like your staying in the low 50,000s now :) I don’t think it’s ever been proven how Alexa helps you, other than to get a good Alexa ranking means you have been doing the right work and are head in the right direction. Guest posting, commenting, content on a regular basis, getting link backs, etc.
Nice tips.I really appreciate all your efforts and ideas to make your blog get under 100k. I am trying to improve my ranking right now, hope these tips will improve my alexa ranking
These tip are awesome! I hope it will works me too
Really Struggled hard to improve my site Alexa ranking and then found your site on Google SERPs.
the experience you shared and the checklist toward better Alexa ranking is really helpful.
I can also confirm that your information, in particular regarding Alexa, agree with my experience. Your chronological listing has pleased me very well. Thanks for the post.
Hello Michelle and thank you for this awesome post these tips were a great help to me, i have managed to crawl down to in 4,000,000 in 2 months, alexa listing i was originally hovering around 16,000,000 for 1 year nearly.
Thanks Muj
Thanks for this awesome post. I haven’t paid much attention to it but will start now by using your technique.
Adding an Alexa widget to your blog will give a major boost on Alexa rankings.Getting quality backlinks will also help. But without original & quality articles, that boost will be temporary.
Thanks for sharing this nice story. It is really help me to learn the better ways to ranking a site on Alexa under 100000. It is really hard to listing, however quality posting and regular blogging may help.
Yes, quality posting and blogging regularly does help as it will attract more traffic to your blog.
Great information! Very helpful.
You can tack your progress using this free tool:
http://tralexa.com
Thanks for sharing this, Mark.
This is brilliant.
I really appreciate you taking the time to break down the action you took as your alexa score got better!
Thank you
You’re welcome Kael, thanks for commenting.
Mine is new blog.1.5 months old.Last week my alexa rank was in 18M .Then it moved to 13M , then 7 M , 5M .Today it’s at 2M .In one week nearly 15M decrease
What is did ?
Installed alexa tool bar .started commenting on Good sites
I have a doubt. Is still alexa rank is important in SEO? Now everybpdy is asking for MoZ DA, ahrefs rank, CF etc.,
Wow you have received so many comments for this post :-) I was following your strategy for quite some time now and it really works Thanks :-)
Thanks Jonathan, appreciate the feedback and sharing your results.
I know this post is quite old now, but I wanted to let people know that it is still relevant. I first read this post about 3 months ago and, utilizing many of the strategies outlined above, managed to drop our Alexa rating from around 300K to 120K in probably about 4 weeks, and though it has inexplicably dropped back down to 170K this last week, I have confidence that we will rebound and get below 100K very soon. I know that your Alexa rating is not the be all and end all of website stats, but, along with good traffic patterns, it does give you something tangible to show to potential advertisers to prove your site’s worth.
Hey Jerry, thanks for sharing your results. Appreciate you.
Thanks for sharing this type of blog it is awesome. The way this blog describe i really liked it. My website alexa rank was 9,197,058 and right now 1,463,306 for more check here: http://www.vivanls.com/
Thanks for Sharing such an informative article sir, My website Alexa rank is under 40,000
Patanjali Ayurveda Worlds’s Largest Ayurveda Limited Company
Thank you so much for teaching in a very simple way through your articles, amazing article.
My website Alexa Rank is 34,653, I will sure follow your tips to make my rank more.
Regards
Yogesh Kr
Hey Yogesh, glad you found this helpful & thanks for commenting.
This is a great article and the tips are awesome. I will definitely try some of these strategies as my site has been bouncing up and down the alexa rank lately.
Cheers
great article and the tips are awesome.