I had been monitoring and analyzing the pattern of how Alexa ranking works over a period of 1 year. It involved data capture and analysis and lot of maths. I was surprised to know, it wasn’t relevant enough. It’s implementation lacks consideration of certain facts that can make it’s Ranking wise deal.
Ranking Algorithm Isn’t Perfect
The ranking algorithm isn’t perfect. Firstly, all analytics data is based on last 3 months Only. This is something really bad. Suppose site X received a million hits-a-day 95 days back and unfortunately today they get half million, site gets no credit of achievements in the past. Same holds good for other ranking parameters.
The rank is calculated based upon certain Parameters. And some of them are wrong ways of doing it. Let’s cover them one by one:
Traffic Rank and Pageviews: Pageviews looks at “how much traffic a site had been receiving over last 3 months”. The value is compared against the web trends and ranked. Looks fair – More traffic on a site, better it is.
However, TrafficRanking, which is supposed to be driven by Pageviews, isn’t exactly so. e.g. When two sites have same Pageviews, TrafficRanking can be totally different. This difference can, Max., be of the order of 30x times (explained later).
This is so because TrafficRank is nothing but the Alexa Rank. PageViews is NOT the only factor that influences it. Okay, it’s fair, we need to have more parameters.
Whatever the parameters may be, PageViews should take highest precedence, but it`s not the case here . The rank is weighted/divided inappropriately among the other parameters, as discussed further.
Reach: Specifies how much on the breadth, is a particular site popular (worldwide).
Pageviews/User: This has to do with returning users. Does a site’s user return again? Simply stating, does a site make permanent user experience? If yes, site is ranked better.
Bounce %: Bouncing is defined by users exiting a site. If users go out from a site more frequently, via hyperlinks or whatever, the site is awarded with a lower Rank!
Time on Site: This is self explanatory. If average of time users spent on a site is high, it’s ranked higher. Ahem, Think of this Gmail, users keep it open all day and Google get’s opened on need basis. It means that Gmail will be ranked higher than Google.
Search %: How much of site’s traffic comes from Search engines.
Sites linking In: This is the Most Influencing factor. How many backlinks a particular site/blog has, impacts the rank heavily. I agree, even Google does the same. But wait a minute, it’s updated every 3 months. Hey Alexa, are you kidding me?
If I get better traffic and pageviews, better search%, better time on site, by 2x factor, Alexa will still rank the other site better which has better backlinks that too updated 3 months back. Ahh Snap! I am more than impressed.
Now look at it all together:
Site Score = ( A x Views + B x Reach + C x PerUser + D x Bounce + E x Time + F x Search + G x Links ) / Some constant
Here G has very high value of the order of 3. A = 2, B=1.5, C = 2, D = 1.6, E = 1.9, F = 2, G= 3.
You can clearly makeout these values aren’t perfect for ranking a Site.
Values like A = 3, B=2, C = 3, D = 0, E=1.9, F = 3.5, G = 3 makes more sense for me. (d=0 means it shouldn’t depend on bounce rate as we are considering Loyality with PerUser already)
How I calculated this Formula:
I won`t explain everything, since it’s complex, here is a brief on it:
All values were calculated by studying alexa’s behavior over a period of 1 year. During this period, data was collected in 4 sectors (each of 3 months), making the formula more accurate.
An automated PHP script captured all the parameters by parsing HTML/AJAX objects on daily basis for Taranfx’s Alexa Stats to conclude to the approx. mathematical formula. The actual formula came out to be much more complex but the above one gives 90 – 95% accuracy, not bad at the cost of ease.
If you are good at mathematics, you can do this too and share your formula.


Read more: http://geeknizer.com/alexa-rank-irrelevant-how-alexa-works/#ixzz1iaLvrL3X

*dhtml:

^^^Nonsense and ingrediens, you have been decepted my friend, to believe for a second that this thread is about my alexa rankings. . . .i dont give a fork about about alexa ranking seriously. I am more concerned about my bandwidth that is almost finished, and my earnings from adverts on my site, and reducing my workload a bit.
This thread is just for advertisement and for relaxation as well - some kinda spar. A respite since there is no fighting thread around at the moment, everything is just dead and quiet - like a graveyard. I was thinking of bombing the board to wake it up, but i am even too bored to launch the bomb - i just dey look at the bomb on my desktop, to launch kai. . .i don tire - i go soon retire sef.
Now, where is that seun? He is the only one that can cure my boredom at the moment - into some positivity.

That is what i was implying in my post there. That the parameters alexa uses is not completely accurate. It is affected by traffick though, but there is more to it than that.

Alexa cannot be 100% accurate since it relies of information it is not a direct party to. The only highly accurate way to measure site traffic, particularly low traffic websites, is to have a site raters marker embedded in your site code, such as your web hosts marker.

Alexa will give better stats if your site is verified!

Right now it is just a guide for non verified users, especially since they removed the reach stats from the free offering!