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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Michelle,
Have gone thru your post quickly…I am going to print it and study it…Thanks for the detailed analysis! I have been around 800,000 then went up over 1,000,000….i am working to get it down again! Thanks for the inspiration ;-)
Those numbers can do some crazy things, can’t they? Mine was bouncing all around for a while. It’s still bouncing but not as much now. :)
This is great post Michelle,
I like real case study post like this. Do you think the amount of contents will affect the alexa rank?
Michelle, first of all, I enjoyed reading this post!
Secondly, I’m doing similar things as you (just found selfgrowth.com and love that community) so I will be right behind you. :-)
I agree with you that any one system is useless to gauge success with our blogs, and it takes a combination of tools to show better results and Alexa is just one of them.
I understand that social proof matters but I see people getting so caught up in rankings that it’s ridiculous.
What ultimately matters is how well conversions are doing. I will be starting a new blog soon and will track my measurements as well because I’m just interested in seeing how things change over time as I try new things and tweak stuff…
Thanks for sharing this with us and congrats on making it under 100K! Love it!
SelfGrowth has some awesome content. I need to explore it more.
Exactly, a combination will give us a much better idea of how we’re doing. I’m not a fan of obsessing over any one thing.
And you’ve hit the nail there. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what any “tool” or “ranking” says. Results (conversions, sales, getting out stuff out there, helping clients) are the measure of success.
Absolutely love the content here. Although it may take all week to go through the awesome links and recommendations. I’ve jumped over to hubspot – great resource. The ranking for my vanity url page is higher than I expected, but still terribly low. Onward and upward!
Looking forward to tomorrow’s post too!
Loralee
Thanks, Loralee. And yes, lots of links! This post was 3 or 4 months in the making, so take your time. :)
Hi Michelle,
I loved reading this post, this was information I did not have. How do you get sites to link to yours –Is it just a matter of content?
I do a couple of different things for links — mostly blog commenting, and submitting articles and/or guest blog posts right now. I’ve submitted my site to directories in the past. I also use StumbleUpon and share my content on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you’re look for link building ideas, you might like these two posts:
https://michelleshaeffer.com/5-easy-ways-to-build-links-to-your-website/2011/04/07/
https://michelleshaeffer.com/5-more-ways-to-get-links-to-your-website/2011/04/08/
Thanks, Michelle!
You’re welcome, Gustavo. :)
Hey Michelle!
This was really fun to read, and I love how you kept track of what you were doing and how it impacted your ranking too. I noticed that my traffic and my alexa ranking aren’t necessarily in correlation, so glad I’m not the only one. ;)
Cheers!
Yeah, that part really threw me off at first — I kept expecting my ranking at Alexa to change when my traffic did, but it didn’t happen like that. It’s interesting for sure. :)
I love seeing that someone has brought this up. I confess, I am on Alexa at 4 a.m. every day to check out my new stats. You have made a couple of points on here that I will put to use. My site went up in March and since March has been improved quickly. From 9mil global, 2mil locally and now at 494,000 globally and 107,000 locally. Since then my page rank is a 2 now. SEO is very exciting. I feel Alexa, while not completely accurate is very helpful for a general idea.
Very cool, Traci. :) I like some of the other options Alexa offers — looking at bounce rates, search terms, etc. It does have a lot of helpful information.
Love your detailed list – I love all the details.
Confession – I’ve only been on Alexa about 3 – 5 times in the last 5 years!!!!
And I went on now again – it is far too depressing – I’m in the millions :)
And see, that’s crazy because I know your blog gets more traffic than that, Marcia. ;) Get that Alexa widget on there and I bet it’d make a big difference for you.
Michelle, this has really been a determined quest for you and I admire your tenacity! You’re right about if you allow the numbers to get to you it can drive you crazy and the interesting thing is that the Alexa ranking does not have a bearing on the Google ranking, yet it’s considered to be very important. I also understand the appeal of the challenge and you did all the right things.
My website I listed here is fairly new and is still in the one million range, whereas my oldest has been in in the low 300,000’s. Regardless of the reason, you’ve outlined some things that you did to increase you rankings that are definitely worth copying and implementing in my business model. Thank you and congratulations on reaching you goal. Look forward to the follow-up post.
Thanks Yvonne, it was interesting for sure. Strange what motivates us sometimes. :)
The follow-up is posted here: https://michelleshaeffer.com/how-to-get-a-lower-alexa-ranking/2011/06/29/
Hi Yvonne, yes, it was an interesting project. :) And funny what motivates us sometimes. :)
I posted the follow up here: https://michelleshaeffer.com/how-to-get-a-lower-alexa-ranking/2011/06/29/
I once had a new website with a lot of pages (1000+) and a website with just a few. Both websites got the same amount of traffic according to google analytics, but the website with a lot of pages had a much better alexa ranking.
Interesting! I do wonder what other things affecting the rankings because it doesn’t seem to be based only on traffic for sure.
I check my Alexa once a month when I check my other stats. It was never really of interest to me until it has started getting lower. Now I’m ready to break through the 100,000 barrier as well. I’m happy to hear I don’t need to fear taking that plunge.
It’s definitely more fun to check when it’s moving around, in a good direction. :)
Awesome post, thanks for sharing! I’m just getting intentional with my Alexa ranking so this will help a great deal.
Glad the timing was good for you, Glamazini. :)
Thanks for the information, Michelle. I have been focusing on getting my Alexa rating down as well, because I read that no one will accept guest posts if your blog isn’t ranked below 500,000. So that is my goal. Since I started, I have shaved over 500,000 points off, and I can see my goal in site. Like many, I was in the millions, since it wasn’t a priority. So I appreciate the tips!
Focusing attention on it definitely helps. :) Good luck with the guest posting quest!
Finally, someone posted something about Alexa ratings that I understand! You gave me a few ideas of things I should try. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!!!
You’re welcome, Evie. I’m glad it made sense and was helpful. :)
Great post. I must admit I check my Alexa ranking a couple times a week and my website has only been up for regular posting less than six weeks. I do love tracking it though and hope to be under 100,000 soon…but I have a long way to go.
Thanks, Eliz. It’s interesting to track and see what kind of progress we’re making. It took me a while to get to where I’m at, but most of the movement happened once I started focusing on it.
Thank you for sharing this Alexa information with us! I’ve already taken action on my main sites because of this blog post.
You’re welcome, Jeff. It’s been interesting to watch my ranking change and see what effect things (possibly) are having. Alexa’s a bit of a mystery but the basics of building links and getting traffic work.
I will try this one. thanks for the informative post.
You’re welcome, Elpidio.
I just started a blog about a month ago and my Alexa ranking started at 12 million. I am down to under 5 million now. I’d like to see what happens after the 3month mark.
That’s great! Just keep at it and it’ll keep going down.
Such a great post. I am admittedly an alexa junkie. Check about 1X per day. Kinda fun watching it get better & better :)
wow, thanks for such a detailed review! I am a new blogger, really appreciate the tips!
great to see how you did it. I am unfortunately one of those that wakes in the morning and the first thing that comes to my mind is my Alexa ranking. Straight on line i go, after checking my blog for comments and to see my toolbar alexa ranking, i go onto the Alexa site and download the top million sites updated daily report. i’m currently around 105,000, so nearly there.
Xelent! Post
Thanks Michelle,
I now monitored my alexa ranking last week i got 2 million plus but now, down to 1.6 million.
Those are some impressive numbers! (And impressive record-keeping)
I have merely just started blogging a very short time ago. I good ol’ Alexa will hopefully drop my numbers a bit after a while! :)
Question for you:
Google rank VS Alexa. I am so confused how PR works. I just looked up your blog – PR2, but an A-ranking of 61K.
I was on a page this morning. PR2 and Alexa ranking of 16.5M! How is this possible? Any ideas?
This page clearly had no traffic or followers or anything. Yet it is ‘valuable’ in the eyes of Google.
It had one backlink. Maybe a higher authority?
I got my alexa rank down to 400,000 from 13,000,000 last year in about 3 months. However, I deleted that blog. I am currently working on a much better blog with much better content. My alexa rank currently is 21,000,000 approximately. I wonder how much using a content management system such as WordPress or Drupal effects the alexa rank. My website was previously created with wordpress but, Im not using a CMS this time (just php pages).
Hi Michelle
This is really good excellent information and for that I heart you!!!
The site that is my focused attention at the moment to increase Alexa rank is http://TopAtlantaLuxury.com . I oversee several websites, online publishing is our business platform.
The major problem with TopAtlantaLuxury.com when it comes to Alexa rank is that our focus niche is a local market. Which we have a good Alexa rank for Atlanta. However, we need an overall good Alexa rank worldwide. Good and bad problem to have.
We rank in the top 3% organic on Google, Yahoo, and Bing for key search words Atlanta Luxury. I am off assigning our tech support and web traffic gurus these great task assignments you list here.
When you plan your next trip to Atlanta, Georgia please visit http://TopAtlantaLuxury.com ! We got you covered.
All the best,
CR Cataunya Ransom
Cofounder
http://TopAtlantaLuxury.com
I did have my alexa rank down to around 400,000+ but lately for some reason its just back over a million. I haven’t really been doing anything different and that’s the reason I’m sorta puzzled. Thanks for the tips that I’ll try and also remember and do.
Good information, I really enjoy learning additional knowledge that increase web traffic since I own two licensed Internet radio stations. I will combine them with what my staff and I are currently doing. This will help us get to our goal of 100,000 listeners per station listening 3 hours per day.
If you like R&B and Soul Music R&B and Soul Music or maybe Hip Hop Music Hip Hop Music is your thing. Thanks again.
Great post Michelle. I especially loved your comment at the 5 day mark…”Realized not taking specific actions isn’t helping my quest.” I think we can all identify with that one! :).
Once again, another great post. Definitely becoming a faithful follower. 10 months ago I wrote my first blog post. Tomorrow I wlll definitely check out Alexa. A challenge is always fun. Helps give you a end goal to reach while working your business. Recently, I joined Technorati. So I have a 30 day challenge as well… one post daily to build awareness of my blog on family travels. Kudos to you.
Once again you have written a post that I had several questions on and you answered them! My blog is 33 days old and I had heard of Alexa (I researched for 2 months before writing my 1st post). In my first week of blogging I was around 23million and now I’m around 10million. I want to get it up to 50,000!
I know time, backlinks and seo will do it. I had noticed that Alexa’s numbers were no where close to the numbers I was seeing from blogger, sitemeter and clicktale.
Here’s my question: I understand that commenting on blogs helps not only in links and promotion but to “meet” new people. I just don’t know how to do that. Do I go to my favorite blogs and comment on the post I like the most and make sure there’s a link to my blog? Isn’t that spamming? I have only commented on blogs a few times and I never get a reply back so how do I know it was even read? My blog is about mobile homes, which seems to be a taboo and very stereotyped theme. So do I go for home improvement blogs, there’s only 3 other mobile home related blogs that are still up and running!
So sorry to bother you! You are the one person who seems personnable enough to actually help! Thanks so much for having a such an informational place for us!!
I learned many new things, thanks.
What a great post on Alexa. I’m in the same situation you were back in March and I’m wondering what I can do. This post gives really good tips and I learned a lot. Thanks for posting some of the url’s you used for back links.
Kind Regards,
Luis Font
This is really interesting. I have several hubs up at Hubpages and I think a few Bukisa articles that are pointing to my old domain from when I was on Blogger. I didn’t worry about it because the links redirect but I’m thinking now that I should go in there and change them to my .com on Word Press. I’ve been doing a little guest posting so maybe that will help. My Alexa is just above 100,000 and keeps bouncing crazily around by a few thousand like it can’t decide where it wants to be. Great tips! Following your experiment was really enlightening.
Hi Michelle,
Interesting observation. I have to agree, some of us put too much emphasis on Alexa ranking. I mean, if you think about it, it really doesn’t mean anything as it does not represent the real traffic you are getting. It juts calculates it based on the amount of visitors who have installed Alexa toolbar.
But, I have to admit, advertises do consider Alexa ranking a big factor.
Last week, I did a similar experience, where I simply placed an Alexa widget on my blog. In about 3 days it went from 21,965 to 20,603. So, yeah, installing a widget on your blog can increase (decrease actually) your Alexa ranking very quickly.
Well, I have checked yours today and its 47,202. Its a very good improvement. I have started using my domain spicytec.com from March 2011 and at the moment, alexa ranking is 101,065. I hope by tomorrow it will come down below 100,000. your article was helpful for me. I was almost using the same strategy. Im going to follow some of your additional ideas too..
Hi Michelle, Thanks for this post.
Over the years I’ve watched my sites go from 700k to 7 million and wondered what the heck Alexa was all about.
Right away I have followed your advice and got the Alexa badge and review widget in place.
I have also visited SelfGrowth and joined immediately. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it before, what a great place to hang out and be helpful.
Good luck getting to number 1 :o)
Best wishes
Doc
I have the Alexa toolbar as well an you current rankings are much better than this article. It is 46,878 and counting. I compared my rankings to my competitors and I am surpassing some that makes me feel real good. I was shocked Google gave me a page rank of three. Wow
Yeah! Michelle this is great study about your ranking in alexa, I noticed that if you’ll not post daily your alexa rank will go down also, congrats for maintaining your alexa. I hope someday i may reach also in top 100k. thanks for this info.
Fantastic info! I have only had a blog since February. I just checked my ranking and it is 766,766. Much like you, I blog weekly and tribe a lot. I haven’t really focused on SEO much, but I plan to do that very soon.
I am pretty surprised. I work very hard, but I did not expect such a quick change in the rankings.
Really nice stats..author.i am trying to get under 50k alexa
Hi Michelle,
Thank you for the great analysis your have done and shared with all of us regarding alexa ranking improvement. Good luck..
I recently started my first blog and learning to improve alexa rank. Travel Blog. I will follow your steps.
Thanks again for sharing knowledge.
Merry Christmas!!!
Michelle, great insight, great ideas, great workable methods for alexa.
Hi Michelle, I’m so happy to have found your site! This post is great! That’s a lot of work and more importantly it really shows your passion to help others! Your post on Alexa ranking has inspired me to take action to bring my alexa down to 100,000. That will be one of the my goals for 2012! Thanks for sharing!
I would like to thank for this wonderful post .i will do your exercise hopefully it will work with me .
My site http://www.umdeema.com (cooking in Arabic)
Alexa ranking is increasing dramatically daily
Thanks for the article Michelle. I’ve been tracking my own Alexa rank for a while now and have found it to be a really strange experience which echo’d yours a bit although I haven’t been as successful as you yet. Hopefully I will be soon.
It’s good to be able to hear the experience of another blogger as the sort of things you have been experimenting with are really fascinating to me. I also find Alexa’s ranking to be wildly inaccurate when I look at other sites. You get great sites with terrible ranks. The thing that keeps me checking my rank regularly though is that I do think that the principles of getting a good Alexa rank do apply in terms of traffic in the long term. What I mean is, if you are writing content regularly and getting links to your site then Alexa improves your rank and I think they are the two most vital things you can do to get traffic in the long run. Good luck with your blog!
Hi There Michelle,
This is an absolutely fantastic detailed article about Alexa ranking and having been working on my own Alexa numbers is really interesting to me.
I have recently been working with a group of others who visit each others sites and I have gotten by Alexa ranking from 1.5m to about 480,000.
I will implement some of your strategy as well and see what happens.
It certainly looks like blogging, commenting and being on other sites helps the ranking.
Great job and I look forward to more from you.
Tim
Argon Management Training Inc
It appears that the highest contributing factor is consistency in your blog posts. Thanks for such a thorough analysis.
Thanks for this helpful post.
also you have better SEO in your site.
coz, m searching about alexa ranking and find this nice post.
thanking you.
I see people who have posted a blog post almost daily and their Alexa rank doesn’t change too much where i have had my Alexa rank going well everyday with a post sometimes daily and sometimes weekly. I think it has to do with how many viewers to your site that have the Alexa toolbar installed. You are right to install the Alexa widget as that really jumped my ranking.
The trick with Alexa ranking is the widget. Jimmy from w3blog.dk did an Alexa experiment which he shares with his readers on http://w3blog.dk/random/update-on-my-alexa-ranking-experiment.html, which is worth a read.
The funny thing is, although we are all aware of the unreliability of Alexa ranking, we can’t resist trying to better the numbers.
Great post, I have been trying to change my alexa numbers and frankly this is one of the best post and more straightforward I have read on the subject. Thanks!
This is really interesting! Thanks for posting your timeline. My Alexa number has been wildly increasing or decreasing and I can’t quite figure it out, but reading your post is giving me more of an idea of what Alexa is looking for.
Michelle,
Thank you for the “blow by blow” summary, it is helpful to see what activities a blog entails day in and day out for comparison purposes.
On the Alexa site’s “Q&A” it mentions traffic being the metric but mentions nothing about site links being part of the ranking. However, your post questions whether the links helped the ranking.
My ranking, in the last month and a half, has worsened by 300% – in spite of traffic (according to Blogspot and Google Analytics) having increased. This is a puzzle I am trying to understand. Thanks for helping!
Thank you for the interesting information, I’m already applying some of your tips to my website.
I’ve been researching Alexa today and this is the most detailed post on the subject I’ve found. Kudos! It should be on the first page of Google. :-)
Hi Michelle,
I’ve been kicking around a post that I’m creating for Alexa. This is very robust review of your experience and findings. I really enjoyed the article.
Have you received any advertising offers since getting under a 100K?
Why are you dead set against advertising on your site? Perhaps you already wrote on post on this, I’ll take a look.
Regards,
Steve
It’s really inspiring.
Awesome, mine is also going the same way
Well, last year I got to the 70,000 Alexa Rank, but after slowing down on my posting (my site is in spanish and had about 5 posts a day, now it’s one daily, I went to the 1000000 again, over a period of 3 months. I think I got too much of a hit and even wonder if a competitor simply did something…
This article is interesting and very useful. It helps me to keep going and understand what could be the next steps. I like the details and the specifications. Thanks a lot!
Hello Michelle,
Enjoyed reading this post although you wrote it almost a year ago now :-). Blogging does rock, doesn’t it?! I got to you by searching on Google how to get my Alexa score back down. It was falling and I was very excited being a newbie blogger and stuff but then to my disappointment it has been creeping…well leaping up. I’ve gotta see if I can do some of the things you’ve done. I think these are great ideas for more than Alexa ranking though. The ones about posting on other sites may be great for building up links to ones site. Thanks for tips.
really superb description. really liked the way you noted down the ranking and analysed on it.
Enjoyed your post, with step by step. I found it very interesting. Hopefully, many of us will have the same success.
Len Saunders
http://www.lensaunders.com
I was wondering what your goal was, with improving your alexa ranking. Just for the satisfaction or are you pushing for advertising revenue?
Just to see what it took to change the numbers. I do very little with advertising on my site, though that may change at some point.
very interesting read on your stint with alexa ranking. i need to give a try with some of those techniques you used to up the rank.
helpful insight on how to drop your Alexa rank. I am having much success at dropping my Alexa ranking. I’m doing well with backlinking and posting regularly, and also submitting my site to Social Media Index websites such as Digg.com. but you’re right Alexa is unreliable and doesn’t show all the back links you’re getting to your site, or the right traffic you get to your site. So take everything with a grain of salt.
I did almost the same things you did, but because my blog is PR6 blog I also added my blog to blogs lists that had blogs with comluv/keywordluv premium that gave me a lot of more traffic.
Then I postet a couple of post on how i was changing my alexa ranking, which gave more traffic, since then the ranking is just getting better day by day. :-)
Congrats I am hovering right around the 100,000 Alexa mark too good explanation on Alexa for the people who are not familiar with it. Nice blog you put together here keep it growing and I wish you the best of luck with it.
Excellent tip Michelle. You did a great job, no wonder why your site keeps growing in Alexa rankings. Thanks for sharing this.
This is a wonderful article. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately regarding seo and alexa, but none of the article can compare to this one. I like how you used your personal testimony as an example to help others. You gave a very detailed timeline on how you were successful with Alexa, and the timeline is so easy to follow that others can implement it into the own strategy.
Great article Michelle,
Thanks for your help
Woww.. very nice :)
I have a new domain so my alexa rank is not good as a previous, but I hope I can get better. Thanks.
This is a really helpful article. I just got hit pretty hard by Google and have been trying to recover from it. I submitted for a handful of guest blogging spots from your recommended list and we’ll see how I do. My goal is to be under 100,000 by the end of the year.
Thanks for you detailed insight.
Amazing man, I am on the brink of breaking the 100K mark it has only been a couple of months, so happy!
Wow. nice post pal!
I am new at IM.
Alexa havent even consider my site. It’s still n/a.
Hope after i try some of your advice, my alexa will appear.
thanks alot..
Interesting. I only just checked my Alexa rank and found that it is about 130,000. Which is for a 16 week old site. Also noticed that it’s actually got a little worse since some reports I did a month ago (when it was 122,000 or therabouts)
All I’ve done is post regularly, and rather verbosely. My average post is around 1000 words with many well over 1500. THe dip may have been in April where I was away for several days and didn’t post. Who knows?
Until I test the other focators on your list. I’ll not be certain. I intend to take your best ideas and run with them though. Setting a target of 65,000 (so half my current AR).
I’m not sure it’s anything like accurate as my site only gets 300 UV’s a day, adn I can’t believe that puts in at 130,000. I doubt it should be inside a million. PR has also risen.
I wish I knew the exact reasons for all of this activity, but like you I’m going to try trial and error and work it out.
This is a great page! I learned a lot. Is it true that Alexa goes by the past 3 months? So what I’m doing now technically won’t show up in my Alexa Ranking for 3 months?
Timeless post for sure and it looks like things are still moving in the right direction. You’re below 50,000 now and trending down!
Congratulations. :)
Thanks for all of the great tips. I took my Alexa widget off my sidebar after reading hat it does not affect ranking. I think I’ll re-add it and see if I get my rank to drop a bit more. I’m hovering around the 150K mark.
This is a good post, i read it speedily. thanks for such a good job.
How does alexa keep track of the inbound links to the website?
Because results are quite different, if we compare with other Tools (that keep track of website inbound links)
I have been looking for a post like this for awhile. Great job Michelle. I liked how you broke it down, showing that persistence is what gets the job done(in your case, a higher alexa rating). Come by polfit.com if you’d like to see how persistent we are in getting kids to walk again using intensive physical therapy.
-Dean
Thanks, Dean. Persistence is often the key to success. :)
Great Article Michelle, I Just started a new site and I’m at 300k in my first 30 days… I love the information here, its very valuable. Please feel free to come check out my site and feel free to comment and syndicate some of my content.
Thanks Again,
Eric Burnett
Traffic is the only way that may increase your site alexa rank. So do SEO and other promotional methods to increase you traffic and alexa will increase automatically.
Thanks for commenting, Aseem.
Hi Michelle – This was such an interesting read. I was googling info on Alexa ranking, and this blog post came up. I admit, like mentioned above me, I am a bit of an Alexa junkie too.
I genuinely think Alexa is pretty good at giving you an idea of the relative traffic of sites, and I can see that my Alexa rank goes up and down a bit depending on how hot of a blog article I post. I don’t think the Alexa toolbar is THAT huge of a factor anymore. When I compare where I’m at with other sites, the results at least look like they’re making sense to me on Alexa. You know what I mean?
Congrats on your great ranking (even though you say your quest was childish – I liked it! :-D) – Looks like you’re at about 13,000 ish today (as a US rank).
I haven’t done a huge amount to push my blog and grab more back links – I almost never guest post. I’ve hung at around 270,000 to 220,000 as an Alexa rank for a few months. My blog is 2 yrs 9 months old.
Thanks for the interesting article and I’ll be sure to poke around and check out your twitter profile.
Yes, I think Alexa is getting better over time at projecting real traffic vs. toolbar user traffic. :)
Michelle Shaeffer, you are my hero. About 90 days ago I found your blog and followed your step by step instruction. At that time by alexa ranking was about 560,000 after I did some work within about 2-3 weeks I dropped to 290. I was so happy and I started working harder but didn’t see much change maybe went down to 270,000. Then I reactivated my twitter account, asking people to link my website, I started working on creating quality articles and cleaned up my code. After all that work big change my rank went down to 176,000. It was there for a few weeks and I dept working on it now my alexa ranking is hovering around 130,000. When I was trying to get my alexa ranking down I guess I was making my website better in every way so my traffic doubled and my adsnese tripled. I am grate full for your hard work and sharing it for free.
Thank you
Awesome! So glad this was helpful for your Mikael and thank you for sharing your results!
I enjoyed reading through your content, and am very proud of your accomplishments. I would love to be able to leave my link here if permissable.
http://www.naacei.org
Great advice. Our Alexa ranking is dropping almost daily. We are very excited and we learned a few things from this. Our site is NewVideos.com and as people searched the site and more unique content was added the better our number became.
We are new to twitter and will add this to the mix. Thank you for the help.
I opened a business and decided to design and create my website. While I was creating the website, I realised that to design and to get it online were the easy parts. SEO is just as important as the design, and it is a lot harder to achieve a good result. It is a hard task, but thanks to people like you, and blogs like yours I will succeed.
Thank you!
My business sells safety nets to protect children from falls.
Click here for more information on how to protect windows, balconies and stairs.
Thank you so much for posting your journey with Alexa and what you’ve been doing! I’ve been blogging for a year, and am now really getting into it. I don’t really care about my ranking, but many companies that offer products for reviews and advertising will only work with blogs who have a ranking under 100k…. so that’s why I’m working on my ranking!
Thanks again, hopefully with some of your tips I’ll start to see some improvement on my own Alexa ranking quest!
Great stuff. I followed through onto Ultimate Blog Challenge from this post, and Im going to give it a go for the July one and see if it brings any new traffic to my site.
Might give Selfgrowth a go too, and see what difference that makes as well.
Hi Michelle,
I am really inspired by the amount of dedication you have shown to increase your alexa ranking. I have a few sites of my own, have tried working over increasing alexa rank for more than 6 months now but they are lacking such a kind of dedication i guess. I am much impressed. Hope I post back a good result within the next month after reading your blog.
Thanks,
Neal.
Thanks Neal. It did take some focus and consistency, and I’ve found that stays key to staying ranked well over time. You can do it. :)
Hope so Michelle!! I was trying to get the rank up soon & side by side earn via Google Adsense as pocket money, earned the google adsense account also but then it was cancelled within 1 week. Actually the reason I dont understand. May be I can apply to them within a few months again. I was thinking if there were some really good options other than Adsense which could help me just like Adsense to earn more than the other not so popular ones on the net. I have gone through many blogs but they dont seem to be much appreciated & popular. Just wanted to discuss it here so that I could have some real members having experience earning from them. If you could only suggest that would be useful.
Thanks,
Neal.
Michelle, this is such an incredible post, I love it! thank you! I have to agree…alexa is very innacurate and really slow! but they’re an industry leader, and you’re right, many advertisers, and business look at alexa for rankings and make decisions based on it.
I hadn’t heard of the HUbSpot marketing grader before – I absolutely LOVE it! Awesome resource! It shows you where you’re lacking and gives a lot of valuable detail on shares, links, etc.
Cheers to blogging in your Ultimate Blogging Challenge this month to help build rankings! Thank you,
gina~
Awesome, Gina! I’m glad you’ve jumped into the challenge. :)
And yeah for advertising it does matter so might as well learn how the game works. ;)
Hi Michele,
I am on the hunt for a sub-100,000 alexa ranking!
Thank you for your tips. Let’s see what I can do.
Starting at @ 2,000,000+
cheers,
Pete
Really inspiring post Michelle. Loved how you got so high Alexa ranking in just few days. I think i have to work harder for achieving this. Thanks for the post and steps taken. Would be really useful.
I came here from your post how to get an Alexa ranking. I am glad to hear that you don’t place too much stock in it. My ranking is not great. I will however implement much of what you have mentioned here.
I am following this site daily. NewVideos.com is the You Tube alternate. We have owned the domain name since 1997 and finally developed it last month. The natural search terms for “New Videos” are what is driving traffic to the site. We have an Alexa ranking of 1.5 million world wide and under 500K in the US. All of this in one month
I believe that the drop in our Alexa Ranking number is the high quality video content and detailed descriptions people put on the videos. NewVideos.com allows members to link back to their site. It is free and it is clearly working because of our weekly number improving. Check it out at http://www.NewVideos.com for yourself.
I am confused about Alexa. Up until July 15th, my ranking was around 4,129,400. This past week I have noticed a serious decline. Today I am ranking 1,862,840. How and why would it drop so drastically?
Cheers Michelle for all the great play by play info. It has helped alot. Mr. CBB
wow Michelle. Thank you for sharing this post. I guess i have to stick it out and comment on other blogs daily to see some results. Just like you, I have been looking at my alexa rank traffic and it fluctuates and it annoyed me. i thought what i was doing was not working but i guess it is. Thank you for the post. I will keep your guard lines and i sure need to start doing guest post..
Fred
Wow, that really speaks to the power of putting your mind to something. That’s a really great experiment. And few bloggers are actually humble enough to go into such detail with figures and the whole thing…
Great post!
Michelle,
I want to thank you for this study. This is truly landmark for SEO. To date I have not read anything so comprehensive. Webmasters really need to pay attention to this material and implement it into their customers SEO implementation programs.
Hey Charles, thanks for stopping by and commenting. It was an interesting experiment and cool project to share.
I totally agree with you that alexa ranking really helps in social proofing. Apart from improving your site bounce rate a good alexa ranking will also boost social sharing with the assumption that your content is valuable thus worth sharing.
Thank you Nice sharing. I am inspired by you.
Wow! This is a great way to post about Alexa and a very useful tool for others. But it’s pretty obvious why you’ve got such a high Alexa score:
-You’ve got great content that is interesting to webmasters (those most likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed)
-You are actively guest posting and commenting
-You’ve enlisted the help of your readers
-Even this post is helping your Alexa score (see if there was a big, but steady drop after you published it)
Nice job :)
Great Advice…Like how you did the timeline down to when you got under 100,000 now we know what you were doing to get more views…thanks for the great post! http://www.roros-world.com
Michelle, this is such an encouraging article regarding Seo, Alexa and just simply making your presence known on the web. I feel like I am about 1/3 of the way there. http://www.findeavor.com is currently a PR2 ranked site that is still trying to break the 1,000,000 barrier. I am quickly finding that blogging and commenting seams to be the most effective. We a really trying to be genuine in our efforts, despite the temptation to game the system. I think I will start journaling our road to a better alexa score and see if that makes a difference. Thanks again,
Joe from Findeavor.com
Thats a great post…There are many indeed who just focus on reducing their alexa rank.I think one should focus more on creating value and adding valuable content that is really of use to the public.Lower rank and money follows in the process..
This is a fantastic post. I am definitely going to have to try some of these things to get my blog rank up. I appreciate how thorough and detailed you were. I am hoping I can get my ranking to under 100k now! *crossing fingers*
Thanks for your advices. I will try it, and I hope I can get a better ALEXA Rank as soon as possible. Have a nice days… ^_^
Hi I amnew here and haven’t even got this far yet as to seeing where my ranking is. I am more interested in just trying to increase my traffic and google ranking . But this is definatly something I will do soon.
Very inspiring post lee
Hi, thank you Michelle for this insight. We run blogy style website and publish two-three news a day and our rank is 800,000! :/ http://www.m2mnow.biz I’ll try repeat your steps and maybe we wil meet somewhere there at 47,551 position ;)
thx Maciej
Very informative article and thanks for sharing. I have very bad experience with Alexa. Few months ago I was running a blogger blog and bought a custom domain and redirected to it. I built traffic with SEO, Social media promotions, friends and referrals. My Alexa rank dropped from 2000000 to 6,50,000. I was very excited but everything shattered suddenly. I unpublished my toolbar ( Blogger blog) which was installed previously and installed a new one. Suddenly my Alexa rank jumped from 6,50,000 to 8,88,000 in 2 days. This is really bad. I will try to follow the tips given in the article. Hope for the best.
Why my reputation link in alexa drop.?
Good information about getting a better Alexa rank but you are correct as Alexa is pretty inaccurate but does help getting advertisers.
My sites alexa ranks were going great but for some unknown reason they are dipping for past one month. For my main site it went from 140K to 230 k within a month and for my new site which was going great.. it took a nose dive from 340K to now 880K.
Any idea why?
I am still posting one post daily. Traffic is constant. Links have been increased.
Love the way you charted your progress, it’s a testament to trial and error in pursuit of a better ranking. However, have you looked into writing reviews for others? Also, submitting to niche sites that are talking about the same subject matter works. Tech forums are always great because webmasters typically have Alexa toolbar embedded within their e-signature. We put together a little infographic that has mapped our journey as well. Feel free to leave a comment on our blog and let us know what your thoughts are: Secrets of Alexa Rankings
Thanks for the write-up. It is nice to see that you don’t need 1000 back links to get a higher ranking. Congrats on your success!
Thank you , Michelle, I was wondering about the best method of getting Alexa ranking, it’s nice to see it laid out like this.
I now have some work to do.
Once again, Thanks.
Thank you so much for the advices. It sounds like a lot of great work you did. Congratulations. Luis from Mexico.
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for all the great info in this post. You have prompted me to finally claim my site on Alexa and add their widget to my site. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. The HubSpot Score link listed is an awesome tool! I still have some work to do as my site scored an 82, but at least now I know what needs to be done!
Congrats on getting your Alexa score so low! Mine has been bouncing around the last year from 350,000 back up to over a million and as of today, it’s about 928,000. I am anxious to see how it changes in the coming months after implementing some of your suggestions!
Thanks again, :)
Richard
I think I am about due for my own Ultimate Blog Challenge. I honestly think what you did is the perfect way to fast track a blog or website. Great post!
The blog challenge is an awesome way to get a lot of content done fast and make connections. :)
great tips. I had great numbers pointing to blogspot url instead of my domain.. bad move. I feel like i have to start all over. Thanks
Michelle, Where from I should start to appreciate your article? First of all I enjoyed a lot reading this post. It’s not just an article but also a journey of getting Alexa ranking. The way you have explained your Alexa journey is outstanding and rele very interesting. I never found such article anywhere on internet though I have searched a lot for getting and improving Alexa ranking and finally I got this article here. Hope it will also help me to boost my ranking. I will continue to check your updates in future. Keep going.
Thanks for the post. I am with <500k Alexa rank. Got many new ideas from your post to make my Alexa rank better.
Good article, very informative too. I just started doing some of the things mentioned yesterday and then today my alexa rank went up by one million. I am so excited. I have a photo blog because I am a wedding photographer but also pay very close attention to seo and recently learned about alexa and am on the move….cool Thaks again…
Thanks a lot admin for this article. I also feel that alexa is not worth for supposing all about any site. Alexa ranking may be good if someone follow your post.
What I have concluded after thorough testing is, posting frequency also increases Alexa Rank to an amazing extent. With 50 posts per day on elolz.com I got an alexa rank of 18k under 1 month =)
Since posting more frequently generally increases traffic, it would make sense for that to help Alexa rank. :)
Hey Michelle,
My website ranking is dabbling between 120k-125k :S , am struggling to get it down and found out your post after searching it on google!! :S I hope this helps !! Am saving this page and going to strictly go by the rules , I hope it helps :) Thanks a ton!!
Well, can’t say they’re “rules” but it’s what worked for me and has kept me in the top 100,000K for a while now. :)
Lets see if it works for me :) .Thanks :)
Thanks Michelle. This is an excellent post. I have bookmarked this page.
Hi Michelle,
This is quite a morale booster. Quite kind of you to take us through the experience. I will try it and I especially like your infographic on “How to Get a Better Alexa Ranking”. Hope it is ok to share it on my blog – http://www.innovation-village.com.
Thanks
Thanks Michelle,
I have been monitoring my own Alexa numbers to see what has an impact on them recently. I am going to try a few of your suggestions and add them to my experiment.
Since I followed some of the tips here my Alexa has gone from 7,419,430 (26/10/2012) to 646,890 (8/1/2013)
That puts a smile on anyone’s face…
Hey Gordon, thanks for sharing your progress! That’s great!
Hello Michelle,
You really did well on your question. this is indeed an inspiration and a step to follow. thanks
thanks for the tips!
i was obsessed with alexa before, but after i did tons of backlinking (might be anti panda), my rank just went down……so i stopped.
so now I read your article at 3am…..I swear I’m not obsessed with alexa :)
http://www.WebbingPlanner.com
Great list. To get better Alexa ranking we should consider so many tips. According to “problogger.net” unique stuff is necessary also it will be most necessary that your site should be appeared in various search engines with better position.
Then your site will able to gain better Alexa Ranking
This was a really interesting read I wonder if it accounts for the same today since all changes with the search engines and whether time scales can be replicated I a currently trying to work out different strategies for different methods of seo. Thie article has been very informative .
Thanks lee
Great post! It’s giving me a lot of motivation, I started my blog 2 months ago and went down from 15million down to 6million on Alexa, and it’s showing only 6 sites linking to me, even though I am pretty sure I should have at least 30 or 40 by now, so I am waiting for Alexa to pick it up.
By the way, visit my website on Binary Option Trading. Thanks! Mike
Hi Michelle
I read through this a few times and decided to give it a go. I am blogging about the results.
Michael
http://www.artisan-solutions.net.au/the-alexa-experiment-getting-started/
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for the info, I desired to try this out in my website http://a4academics.com
Thanks I will surely use the Things you listed.
Hi Michelle!
Just found your awesome blog! Glad I did, because you have some excellent content! And your Alexa rankings are off the chart as well!
Loved your insights on how you got your alexa ranking under 100k. And you certainly get a ton of comments! Gotta learn your secrets!
Keep this great content coming!
Great information!
What would you suggest for a travel website (http://www.hotdeals.com)? Been attempting to build ranking and can’t seem to break out of where we are. Site has been around since 1996, and we get good traffic. However we have a high bounce rate (80%). What I’m I doing wrong?
Sincerely,
Frustrated Owner
Thank you – I’m going to try out some of the less obvious things that you mentioned for increasing the profile of my site and see what happens in a few months.
Thanks Michelle! You have nailed it! It’s about posting rich contents on sites and blogs hmmn. I’m glad I came across your page, for my blog which is almost totally on weight loss , fitness and health, now I can grade my blog better. Thanks again
Thanks Michelle! For informing those of us who want to drive more traffic to our sites and rank better with the search engines and alexa. I run a weight loss and everything in between blog and I’m glad you have taken somne time out to post this. Good one and thumbs up!
Hi Michelle,
I am hard at work improving my alexa rank. Right now my global rank is 951,000 and my US rank is 215,000. This week I have been implementing your suggestions and trying some new ones of my own.
I will keep you posted with my progress!
thanks,
Peter
Awesome case study, interesting to see that blogging and blog commenting are the consistent actions that helped you gain the rankings, thanks for sharing
Great description of events and methods you followed. That really helps others to follow.
My site http://www.teachmemobileapps.com/ was hovering at 3M at one point of time. Later after installing the Alexa toolbar, it came down to around 100K within 1.5 months. Still following closely to bring down 100K. As explained in Alexa site, its the long tail syndrome. Earlier the jumps were very big around 1M – 10K. Now its only 2K (+/-). Looking forward to implement few of your suggestions.
I think I have the worse issue here. I came through to search for best fast alexa result or something. I’m worried that my alexa ranking still not working even no result N/A. I follow your step by step procedure brother. Wish me luck!
Brilliant article thank you so much for this, I will be following in your shoes, well done on all the hard work.
Michelle, I love this post. Thanks so much for sharing this. I’ll definitely print this one for reference. I personally wasn’t that obsessed with my Alexa ranking (I’m still not obsessed up to this day). After the first few months that I started my website, my ranking was terrible. I worked on my content and aimed for a better Alexa ranking and so far I’m happy with the results. But I’m still working on getting to a ranking below 100,000.
@Karen – I think you’re already doing really well! Even getting your blog below 500,000 is impressive! Congrats on your success already. I’m still hoping to get below the 500,000 mark.
I really enjoyed your detailed bookkeeping of checking your Alexa ranks at a regular interval and that makes this post make so much sense. Thank you for sharing your story.
In fact, I am doing the same thing and though my website is relatively new, I see my Alexa rank climbing up every day by a few thousands as I post a few times a week (not daily though).
This is an awesome post. Thank you for sharing and even though I’ve come here late, I really found it very helpful.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi found your article via a Google search & found it helpful, although written quite awhile ago. Just wanted to thank you. I am wanting to continue to decrease my ranking. I think I will track what I do & see how that affects #’s. Looking forward to visiting again.
That’s a great detailed article..I have just started with a News portal. I do get regular visitors of around 100,but I think Alexa ranking metrics is a bit weird.
You are good! Let me see if I can do this!
I think just checking your ranking also helps to keep it stable. I stopped worrying about my ranking for a few months, and it started falling rapidly although my traffic was increasing.
Great information here, Michelle. I really enjoyed this as I was trying to understand the different opportunities on how to increase the rank and continue to improve my overall traffic and engagement on the site.
Thanks!
I’m intrigued about this Alexa.
Apart from perhaps some Kudos is there much benefit to it? I understand google takes passing interest in it, and ultimately as business, google is still the top search engine to rank in. Particularly not being a blog site nor interested in adverts. Or have I misunderstood.
Interesting post though.
What an awesome, very detailed post! Great job.
Alexa and I have SUCH a love hate relationship. At one point last year my ranking was way down to about 80,000. Then life happened.. :) Fast forward to Nov/Dec last year and I just really slacked off promoting and writing a lot. Now I am way up to 239,000 or so and working on bringing it back down.
Love your site. I see a lot of good info here that I will have to read and share. :)
Kris
Michelle,
I have read so many blogs in the past few months, but no one has divulged information so positively , as you have done. I am from India, a home-maker and,trying to establish my site among the fellow Indians, hence getting information about Ranking and all was just not possible for me. Your medium of expression is simply G-R-E-A-T.
I have bookmarked this site, and will turn up now and then to take a peek at your articles. Thanks a lot once again.
Hi Michelle,
Great article, different from any other article discussing about lowering alexa rank.
I found your tips are more applicable dan spesific.
I’m working on lowering my alexa rank too. I’m still in > 5 Million rank right now.
But i’m sure by doing your tips, it will be much lower in shor time.
Thanks for sharing by the way..
Love it so much
GREAT great article. Thank you for being so thorough with your daily activities, it really helps us newbies. However, your article was written over a year ago … do you think it still holds up or has Alexa changed their ranking system?
Hi Jon, great question! While they don’t exactly give us much detail on their “other sources” for determining traffic, the theory is still the same. They want to compare traffic across the net. So focus on increased traffic is generating that is what will still lower Alexa rank. :)
Thanks Michelle! I have to ask … why don’t you have any ads on your own site? I wanted to give you some clicks for providing such great information, but there are none …
Michelle, this article was very insightful. I just discovered Alexa today, and had no idea what the ranking value signified. This clears it up. Congrats on reaching your 100k goal, and good luck with the 50k goal!
Good article, I need to apply good tools for my SEO and alexa page rank. My blog is new, about technology, in spanish..
Great article Michelle!
I was actually doing a google research on how long it would take until Alexa finally indexes the recent links that are redirecting to the sites i’m working on. Then I stumbled upon your article and it actually made me think about how important Alexa ranking actually is. I too haven’t been too obsessed with it (checking it every other day or so), but it’s really annoying how ranking goes up and down without any reason and it seems the number of the sites linking in has not increased in ages. I’m glad to see there are many people struggling with this, despite that as pointed above the article has been written over a year ago.
Thanks for the detailed analysis!
Michelle,
Great article!
I am going after better rankings for my sites. By reading your article/blog give me hope that I’ll get there soooon!
Thanks!!!
Hey Michelle, First time in your site and I am already crawling to other posts here. I started my blog just recently and only see the improvement in its ranking and this fact encourage me a lot to move ahead. I would love to make same kind of strategy to move my blog’s ranking forward. And the blogger here is obsessed with Alexa ranking :)
That is really fantastic try to post
Looking forward for more writings on how to improve alexa with speed..
Hi
Very interesting I agree with you alexa rankings are not the be all and end all but obviously help very much and the higher the more clout you have and as you say people get fixated on it.my ranking would be off the scale at the moment nut I have just got my first page on page 1 of google so that is a big mile stone for me anyway.
Great in depth article thanks lee
We track Alexa rank history for sites and blogs. Submit your site @ http://www.siterankhistory.com.
Give it a shot!
Michelle,
Your efforts to lower your Alexa score are relateable… I just posted a similar story. Although, the lowest I have been was 200,000.
What I find WAY more important on your blog is the amount of comments you get. I am Jelz.
Keep up the good work.
Jason
Awesome! I´m neither obsessed with Alexa, It´s great but there are other things that you can do.
Hi Michelle,
Great post! This could not have been more clear.
Question, if a blogger submits articles to article directories should they refrain from using the same articles that they used on their blog? I think I know the answer but I am not 100% clear.
Thanks Again!
Really good tips! Thanks for sharing this.We’re all a little obsessed with Alexa rank.Thank you again!
This was a very interesting and useful article. That is impressive how you got such a good Alexa rank so fast. I especially like the link you provided to the list of 101 places to submit guest posts. Thank you for that.
All great suggestions. Another method of improving Alexa rank is to write about the topics that people are searching Alexa for. If you have the Alexa toolbar installed then you will see current trends (similar to Google trends) if any of these fit your niche, write about them asap so that you can attract Alexa toolbar users to your site.
Hats off to you Michelle for sharing every bit of information regarding your journey. It is really encouraging for many bloggers. I agree that instead of just worrying about Alexa rank, one must start working hard on creating quality content. Again, a big thank for sharing this. :)
You got it down under 100,000 relatively easily. I’ve been stuck at about 150,000 for 6 months now.
Thanks Michelle, We have been bouncing around on alexa too, but have not installed the toolbar.
Thank you for the information you share here. During pursue the world of blogging, the hardest thing is to streamline alexa ranking. Any means which I have done but the results remain the same. I hope that by reading tips from you, I can apply it on my blog. Thank you very much.
Hi Michelle,
Very useful information. You have improved the alexa rank fast within a month. I do agree that low alexa rank dosn’t mean low traffic. I have proofed it through my readers. One of my readers has a blog with millions alexa rank but 500-1000 daily visits with 6 minutes average time visit, while others has below 60K alexa rank but only 500 daily visit or less.
It so true on what you have said above
I was just searching around links to find out how to get my website rankings lower, It seemed I followed some recommendations and it actually went up. SO I cannot figure out what i did wrong? SO anyway my site is http://www.z100Internet.com and we are a non profit internet radio station. Added some back links, the alexa bar…..I think I will print and study as well as read your blog. Maybe learn something. Thanks you the great article and hopefully tips.
John
Very nice tutorial
i want to know in how many days the site gets updated in alexa
Excellent day by day analysis great post
best article on how to rank high on alexa. And i loved the full details step by step. thank you.
Michelle,
Hi Michelle, I’m just curious as to how you’re getting so many comments. I found your blog via triberr. Is Triberr paying off like this, wow? Could you by chance email me a reply, as I normally don’t check back?
thanks michelle
Thanks for detailed projection of your work. However, somehow Alexa always alludes me, cause my website traffic shows an all together different trend than Alexa.
However, I will work more and see if I can bring it further down
sure things were moving fast with Alexa…but one thing that really hurts me is that it doesn’t gives exact count of my Back links..it is stuck for over two months…although i have made lot of links in meantime!!
Thanks Michelle. I’m primary using advertising to monetise my blog, so Alexa rank is key, and great to read your way to the top to get some inspiration.
this post is definitely very helpful to all newbies who try to get their site a good alexa rank..thanks for the great details :)
Michelle,
Just read this post (only about 2 years late).
Very interesting and instructive since I was kind of obsessing about my Alexa ranking awhile back.
Then I went through periods where I obsessed about LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers. In both instances, I mechanically increased my numbers but have not experienced profound spiritual contentment as a result.
At the moment I know my website and blog need some design and other enhancements before resuming the Alexa race, which will get done (though not right now).
Diana
http://www.StandUp8Times.com/blog/
Amazing post, Congrats and keep posting.
Great post. I will try this one.
Great post Michelle!!
I was searching Google for this and found your site. Awesome site btw! =]
We need to work together! I have been blogging for a year now and my main Blog Site’s Alexa Rank is at about 341, 699 – I know it could be lower since my blog is a year old but I’m working on it even more now than last year.
Your post here has taught me a lot – thank you very much Michelle!
You rock! =]
Much success!
Hello
I have found that getting cerified helps with getting accurate stats, otherwise alexa are just guessing. I am under the 100,000 50,000 for the week and month, would be a lot lower if not certified, I have had a site in the top 8,000 but droped it years ago. I want to be in the top 10,000 again, getting close to 6,000 UV a day
Very interesting !!!
Nice post :)
Nice detailed article with great timeline, I am sure your blog deserves this rank and better, Regular posting does help to push Alexa rank to a great extent, it’s all about making your presence felt everywhere.