How does Alexa measure traffic

**Michel Samuel** · 05-12-2007, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gracia

Remember that Alexa can only measure the traffic to browsers, or users, who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Therefore the results reflect the browing habits, or activities, of those people. This subset of people may not be typical of the general browsing population at large.

One of my colleges purchased a site and really over paid for it.
He based his offer on traffic results. He got hard copy from the seller and then crossed referenced it with Alexa.

Bad move.

Now I'm not a coder or pretend to even have a clue how these things work.
So take this explanation of what happen with a grain of salt.
Because I am certain there is more to this story than what I got told.
And I am certain there is a much better technical explanation of exactly what was done than I can ever hope to give.

But still read the explanation...

1) The seller of the domain/site downloaded the Alexa toolbar and basically decompiled it and figured how the thing worked.

2) He then used part of the toolbar program to create another.

3) After that he uploaded it to a group of zombies on the net.

The objective of the new program was to report to Alexa that someone had
visted his site even tho they did not.

End result was Alexa ratings were made way out of wack.

**$alesman** · 05-12-2007, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikesilvia

Alexa is based on visitors with the Alexa toolbar or Alexa cookie. Think of Alexa as a rating system much like TV. They are using a small sample of the population and showing you stats. Google Analytics is a much better tool in my opinion for seeing you webstats like pageviews and visitors.

Alexa can be cheated in many ways. If you have a bunch of moderators or friends that visit your site make sure they have the Alexa toolbar installed. The more people with the Alexa toolbar, the higher your Alexa score. The one problem? Most spyware will remove the Alexa coolie unless you tell it not to.

Mike

Couldn't say it better myself. Anyone know how to cheat alexa email me. Id like a beter ranking since my results arn't near 1/100 of the traffic I actually recieve.

**ved123** · 06-21-2007, 01:55 AM

It calculate those traffic that is coming from the system which have installed their 'Alexa Tool Bar" . By the way it has no use in SEO, please forget it.

**sheena** · 06-25-2007, 02:53 AM

Alexa can be useful if used to analyse trends; but also dangerous if used as an absolute means of comparing sites.
http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/1...asurement.html

**Shane1** · 07-07-2007, 11:52 PM

Alexa has its place. The people who take it as gospel irritate me, but it can be a somewhat useful resource.

**ForrestCroce** · 07-08-2007, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michel Samuel

But still read the explanation...

1) The seller of the domain/site downloaded the Alexa toolbar and basically decompiled it and figured how the thing worked.

2) He then used part of the toolbar program to create another.

3) After that he uploaded it to a group of zombies on the net.

The objective of the new program was to report to Alexa that someone had
visted his site even tho they did not.

End result was Alexa ratings were made way out of wack.

Maybe, but that's like saying maybe it really was a magic bullet that did Kennedy in. The end result is the same, but the details are a little muddled. That's a lot of trouble that's just not necessary to go through.

If you and a bunch of your friends install the Alexa toolbar, the bona fide one, not a zombie version, and visit a site a lot, that will improve the site's rankings. If 10 % of people use the Alexa toolbar, they assume 10x the number they counted are visiting a site. Which would be a good rough gauge if they could get a random sample, but that's the Achilles heal.

**jimb12** · 07-17-2007, 01:33 AM

you can never get exact traffic...Alexa is about the best you can get.

**Michel Samuel** · 07:25 AM

Due to my combat with alexa I've pretty much become a small expert on how they work.

First of all Alexa is Amazon.com And although they claim the Internet Archive is seperate, Amazon's legal team looks after everything about it. The can do a great dance when asked to clairfy their relationship.

OK...
How traffic is measured.

1) By the alexa toolbar users.
2) By closely examining exit and entrance traffic to the amazon sites.
3) Data purchased from MSN toolbar users.
4) Data obtained from from A9.com, google, yahoo and joyo.com, (joyo is amazon again but I'm not sure the relationship)

There is more but this is the "heavy hitters" of their arsenault.
As Amazon's legal department told me in a letter.

"Trying to obtain a 0% intrusion into your commercial sites by Alexa is not possible. Alexa resources for discovery and cataloging of a site are far too vast and complete."

Quote:

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

Maybe, but that's like saying maybe it really was a magic bullet that did Kennedy in. The end result is the same, but the details are a little muddled. That's a lot of trouble that's just not necessary to go through.

If you and a bunch of your friends install the Alexa toolbar, the bona fide one, not a zombie version, and visit a site a lot, that will improve the site's rankings. If 10 % of people use the Alexa toolbar, they assume 10x the number they counted are visiting a site. Which would be a good rough gauge if they could get a random sample, but that's the Achilles heal.

I take 90% of stories like this with a grain of salt.
Whereas it certainly sounds possible and someone might have actually done it.
But did they do it and for what end result ? That is an entirely different issue.