Alexa Toolbar and Page Widget

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[Meg]

Guera

The page looks great

Re Alexa, I found this by Yaro:

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/600/how-to-boost-your-alexa-ranking-in-one-easy-step/

He seems to think the widget helps, as do many others (anecdotal evidence) around the 'sphere.

But it appears those in the know are at a loss to explain exactly *how* it works.

The other widgets certainly don't do anything for your rank.

[guera]

Thanks for that, Meg.

That´s an interesting article, he seems to be saying that if you have the widget installed instead of Alexa only getting traffic info from visitors with the toolbar installed it is getting traffic from every visitor.

If that´s the case, then it would probably be a good idea for everyone to put the Alexa widget on their site - could overcome the doubters of Alexa who say the rankings only use a fraction of the web traffic.

I actually did see about a 25% jump in my Alexa ranking in the last few days, which I put down to increased traffic from the forum and things like entrecard and a few stumbles, but maybe the alexa widget had something to do with it too. Anyway, I´ve put it back in the sidebar, down the bottom (like Lightening) so its unobtrusive.

[Lightening]

So I´m not sure I really understand this. I put the feedburner, alexa, ratified and technorati buttons on to show (me mostly) how many subscribers, what rank etc.

But do they actually have to load to count towards those ranks? I thought the hits/subscribers/traffic/what-have-you was being measured anyway. I only put them up in the sidebar about a week ago and then moved them today to the about page.

I´m confused  :confused1:

Each one is different. 

I think the stats ones need to load in order to count a visitor.

Alexa - sounds like it does from the article Meg linked to (I have no idea).

Most of the others though just provide you with information rather than actually counting stuff on your blog.  Like you, I tend to have them their for my own convenience (so I don't have to go to various sites to check things out).

[StephenCronin]

It would make sense for the widget to count traffic - as every the widget's javascript file is called from Alexa's server for every visitor. It would be trivial for Alexa to record the web page being loaded and the visitors IP address.

However, I'm not sure it does record traffic. I saw an official denial at some point. Also, I have the widget, but according to Alexa 30% of my traffic is from China (where I live). According to Google Analytics only a small portion of my traffic is from China (that's with my traffic excluded). So the 30% is mostly me. I use my site a lot, but with a minimum of 100 unique visitors every day (sometimes much more), there's no way I count for 30% of traffic. The only way Alexa gets 30% is if they aren't counting every visitor (as they would if the widget DID count them).

BTW, I've heard of people who put the Alexa widget on the site, but use CSS so it's invisible for people to see! I guess that's good if you're rank is not so good and you don't want to advertise it - but I don't think it works..

[Lee]

Well this will be an interesting test then - I have a low ranking on Alexa at present 1983933 - I've just added the widget to my sidebar so we'll see if it increases my ranking over the next week or so.

[StephenCronin]

But now we're all coming to your site to see if you're ranking's changed (us, with our Alexa toolbars) 

[Lee]

But now we're all coming to your site to see if you're ranking's changed (us, with our Alexa toolbars) 

I dont mind!!! 

[Lee]

Well it possibly works went from 1,983,933 to 1,507,438.

I have no idea of the percentage and of course as Stephen points out it may simply be you guys with Alexa toolbars visiting now but it seems like a bit of a jump.

Who knows maybe I'll make it into Meg's list!!!!!