Apr 18 2008
Alexa Ranking Changes – What effect will it have for Bloggers?
Late this afternoon Neerav sent me an email letting me know that Alexa has changed its ranking system. He pointed me to both the Alexa announcement and a post on ProBlogger. Darren points out:
For example my other blog Digital Photography School now shows up on Alexa with a very similar ranking to ProBlogger. Previously it was much much lower despite having higher daily traffic numbers.
He notes that DPS still has an Alexa rank lower than ProBlogger, but at least the discrepancy isn’t as blatant.
The skew Alexa shows towards websites of a technical nature has often frustrated me, and I agree with Darren in hoping that these changes will address that.
Alexa maintain that they are now using sources other than just the toolbar.
We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.
The reason I’m so interested in Alexa, is that the Alexa ranking forms a large part of the formula used to calculate my Top 100 Australian Blog List.
As a refresher, the formula I use takes into account Alexa Australian Rank (AU), Alexa Rank (X), and Technorati Rank (T).
Index = (3 x AU + X + T) /5
Suffice to say, that any significant movement in the Alexa rankings is enough to make a considerable change to the list. And from what I can gather, it has.
I’ve spent some time analysing the data I have available. It’s probably fair to say there wouldn’t have been a huge movement in rankings over that time period, as rankings are averaged over a three month period. I compared both the Australian Alexa ranks and the global Alexa ranks from the top 100 blogs list I compiled 2 weeks ago.
The average change in global Alexa rank was a decrease (hence “improvement”) of 23,000, with the median change being 25,770.
The average change in Australian rank was an increase of 1,494 (hence decline in relative ranking), however the median improvement (decrease) was 427.
Top 15 Global Alexa rank Losses
Let’s look at the top 15 sites that lost rank (note: this means increased Alexa ranking – confused yet?)
Michael Aulia’s Blog
Aussie Bloggers
Skelliewag.org
Anywired
Ben Barden
My Radical Blogs
Ask Kalena
Freelance Switch
North x East
Entrepreneurs Journey
Dipping into the Blogpond
My Big World of Crap
Blogging Sueblimely
Australian Women Online
Life in the Country
All these blogs are either focussed on blogging, technology (i.e. attractive to a tech savvy audience) or relatively new domains.
Top 15 Improvements in global Alexa rank
Magneto Bold Too!
Eight Black
Staralicious
Flying Solo
Sultana Blog
Motivational Speaker – Craig Harper
Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe
The Daily Reckoning
Better Communication Results
Rodney Olsen . Net
Enjoy Perth!
Thinking Home Business
The Boot
Servant of Chaos
Larvatus Prodeo
None of the blogs (except perhaps Eight Black and Thinking Home Business), have a particularly apparent skew towards the tech savvy audience.
Can we conclude from this, that the change in Alexa ranking has addressed the tech skew?
Please find below a summary of the changes AU refers to the Australian Alexa rank and X refers to the global Alex rank. While I have calculated the changes to last update’s top 100, I don’t want to post that until I’ve had a chance to repopulate the whole list. There will be changes.
Alexa Changes to Ranking
URL | New AU | Old AU | Var | New x | Old X | Var |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Problogger | 3089 | 605 | -2484 | 12917 | 3739 | -9178 |
Photoshop Tutorials and Links | 5251 | 1568 | -3683 | 19437 | 9145 | -10292 |
Freelance Switch | 11497 | 2132 | -9365 | 51826 | 13072 | -38754 |
Entrepreneurs Journey | 7011 | 1487 | -5524 | 49443 | 19778 | -29665 |
Digital Photography School | 4570 | 3146 | -1424 | 16561 | 19437 | 2876 |
lifehack.org | 7006 | 6262 | -744 | 16021 | 15366 | -655 |
Australian Car Advice | 1208 | 1635 | 427 | 25074 | 31114 | 6040 |
Aussie Bloggers | 3032 | 243 | -2789 | 145292 | 20185 | -125107 |
Skelliewag.org | 38840 | 6638 | -32202 | 132086 | 38322 | -93764 |
Gizmodo Australia | 778 | 1054 | 276 | 38723 | 64493 | 25770 |
Duncans TV Ad Land | 1907 | 1707 | -200 | 42863 | 59789 | 16926 |
i started something | 14972 | 17965 | 2993 | 20807 | 30237 | 9430 |
Kotaku Australia | 1228 | 1784 | 556 | 43958 | 70885 | 26927 |
Dipping into the Blogpond | 1714 | 1050 | -664 | 101435 | 73126 | -28309 |
North x East | 8517 | 6434 | -2083 | 115530 | 82812 | -32718 |
Karen Chengs Snippets of Life | 2938 | 4171 | 1233 | 98171 | 101944 | 3773 |
Lifehacker Australia | 1681 | 1798 | 117 | 87700 | 108052 | 20352 |
Mummified Times Five | 9181 | 4625 | -4556 | 94307 | 98271 | 3964 |
All for Women | 2709 | 3355 | 646 | 105392 | 104174 | -1218 |
BannerBlog | 20067 | 17861 | -2206 | 68349 | 73300 | 4951 |
My Radical Blogs | 6871 | 3246 | -3625 | 135776 | 89715 | -46061 |
Swollen Pickles | 3337 | 2844 | -493 | 80655 | 88935 | 8280 |
My Big World of Crap | 24216 | 7353 | -16863 | 116651 | 96820 | -19831 |
Life in the Country | 9021 | 4292 | -4729 | 129728 | 117028 | -12700 |
Blogging Sueblimely | 15203 | 11963 | -3240 | 117298 | 100410 | -16888 |
iCing | 7020 | 11450 | 4430 | 85606 | 125180 | 39574 |
Tim Blair | 3139 | 3946 | 807 | 100991 | 158807 | 57816 |
Ben Barden | 14435 | 6199 | -8236 | 150845 | 81882 | -68963 |
Andrew Bolt | ||||||
Lightening | 4078 | 3595 | -483 | 131986 | 131633 | -353 |
Just Make Money Online | 6840 | 8560 | 1720 | 124696 | 141304 | 16608 |
TV Tonight | 1004 | 1360 | 356 | 91484 | 141744 | 50260 |
Scott Yangs Playground | 5149 | 5804 | 655 | 109679 | 114533 | 4854 |
Notjustmama.net | 8258 | 7766 | -492 | 125757 | 158872 | 33115 |
The Original Mx5 | 11145 | 6116 | -5029 | 164561 | 173066 | 8505 |
Small Business Branding | 18970 | 17019 | -1951 | 107107 | 139485 | 32378 |
ThomasSinfield.com | 8724 | 8577 | -147 | 155599 | 179267 | 23668 |
Defamer | 6320 | 8313 | 1993 | 109729 | 171110 | 61381 |
I will change your life . com | 34873 | 37606 | 2733 | 101562 | 109161 | 7599 |
Lost at E Minor | 13541 | 12739 | -802 | 130944 | 187723 | 56779 |
information aesthetics | 84065 | 49743 | -34322 | 93847 | 95927 | 2080 |
On Blogging Australia | 2620 | 3096 | 476 | 133354 | 179518 | 46164 |
Shai Coggins | 3439 | 3876 | 437 | 161204 | 205918 | 44714 |
Michael Aulias Blog | 10969 | 49508 | 38539 | 201106 | 48492 | -152614 |
Taming the Beast | 9723 | 9408 | -315 | 35469 | 39618 | 4149 |
Deltoid | ||||||
Scraps of Mind | 5983 | 4469 | -1514 | 173786 | 184737 | 10951 |
Disassociated.com | 3586 | 3360 | -226 | 186085 | 203747 | 17662 |
Mooiness | 5723 | 8772 | 3049 | 111728 | 129775 | 18047 |
Tailored Consulting | 4077 | 7115 | 3038 | 134742 | 189508 | 54766 |
The Daily Reckoning | 8176 | 9535 | 1359 | 169379 | 247781 | 78402 |
More Than Scratch the Surface | 42384 | 46789 | 4405 | 81198 | 117096 | 35898 |
Abundance Highway | 7470 | 8332 | 862 | 167153 | 219035 | 51882 |
Insight of Nothingness | 15272 | 17995 | 2723 | 111500 | 124735 | 13235 |
Trends in the Living Networks | 9871 | 12609 | 2738 | 193218 | 261919 | 68701 |
Personal Development - The Urban Monk | 32458 | 48233 | 15775 | 120619 | 158146 | 37527 |
Laketrees | 9078 | 11022 | 1944 | 233637 | 276030 | 42393 |
Neerav Bhatt | 2228 | 2285 | 57 | 95999 | 136240 | 40241 |
Sultana Blog | 7601 | 9870 | 2269 | 182012 | 257244 | 75232 |
20/20 Filmsight | 28452 | 39168 | 10716 | 136573 | 177831 | 41258 |
Ask Kalena | 21930 | 24416 | 2486 | 236140 | 190328 | -45812 |
Fashionising | 1154 | 685 | -469 | 44541 | 43439 | -1102 |
Duncan Riley | 8178 | 14283 | 6105 | 215441 | 270843 | 55402 |
Neil Duckett | 80538 | 74585 | -5953 | 90492 | 100048 | 9556 |
Misc. Adventures of an Aussie Mum | 5171 | 7168 | 1997 | 202820 | 270854 | 68034 |
Alister Cameron // Blogologist | 31037 | 25239 | -5798 | 198475 | 239830 | 41355 |
Imaginif Child Protection | 5200 | 7554 | 2354 | 234003 | 284536 | 50533 |
Cooking is my Passion | 19460 | 23623 | 4163 | 218194 | 265292 | 47098 |
Larvatus Prodeo | 4809 | 7606 | 2797 | 202622 | 317013 | 114391 |
Hobart Daily | 4309 | 5025 | 716 | 287209 | 326707 | 39498 |
Magneto Bold Too! | 3003 | 5604 | 2601 | 202433 | 273306 | 70873 |
Rodney Olsen . Net | 11375 | 8309 | -3066 | 219857 | 302874 | 83017 |
Road Less Travelled Blog | 5692 | 4390 | -1302 | 201679 | 223196 | 21517 |
Ausrock | 7423 | 10762 | 3339 | 141751 | 154041 | 12290 |
Motivational Speaker - Craig Harper | 17284 | 30519 | 13235 | 190146 | 266761 | 76615 |
Column Two | 22076 | 30339 | 8263 | 149690 | 217737 | 68047 |
Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe | 5105 | 7370 | 2265 | 208902 | 286074 | 77172 |
Virtual Assistant Blog | 8181 | 6540 | -1641 | 231474 | 276470 | 44996 |
Flying Solo | 3991 | 4925 | 934 | 161734 | 236120 | 74386 |
Buzzing with Ange | 21300 | 15008 | -6292 | 291251 | 285565 | -5686 |
Eight Black | 2842 | 3401 | 559 | 212513 | 285565 | 73052 |
Thinking Home Business | 8395 | 8421 | 26 | 244451 | 328039 | 83588 |
Australian Women Online | 6539 | 6119 | -420 | 282244 | 266403 | -15841 |
A Roaming Aussie Mum | 10525 | 13323 | 2798 | 209277 | 218697 | 9420 |
Semantically Driven | 3537 | 4435 | 898 | 232373 | 301110 | 68737 |
Better Communication Results | 11805 | 10643 | -1162 | 275765 | 357085 | 81320 |
The Boot | 3304 | 5645 | 2341 | 183668 | 270552 | 86884 |
DigitalBurn.org | 9254 | 10046 | 792 | 170082 | 215952 | 45870 |
Design Sojourn | 68934 | 82120 | 13186 | 149117 | 154924 | 5807 |
Servant of Chaos | 37965 | 37242 | -723 | 209817 | 305889 | 96072 |
Car News @ MotorDude.com | 4589 | 5718 | 1129 | 226894 | 250525 | 23631 |
The Cerebral Mum | 4162 | 6201 | 2039 | 245733 | 281846 | 36113 |
Art News Blog | 72322 | 63995 | -8327 | 181584 | 236505 | 54921 |
Anywired | 70627 | 9855 | -60772 | 150540 | 58955 | -91585 |
Gday World | ||||||
Blogging Personal | 8027 | 13889 | 5862 | 200200 | 242218 | 42018 |
Staralicious | 18023 | 21465 | 3442 | 219494 | 292807 | 73313 |
Kensington Victoria | 141480 | 39634 | -101846 | 141480 | 193269 | 51789 |
How to Live Online | 32159 | 44092 | 11933 | 229058 | 261841 | 32783 |
Enjoy Perth! | 6120 | 5765 | -355 | 284183 | 367552 | 83369 |
25 Responses to “Alexa Ranking Changes – What effect will it have for Bloggers?”
I’m totally confused. I have the Alexa tool bar installed on my computer and although my site traffic increases every month, my Alexa ranking fluctuates wildly. In the last two weeks the ranking for ‘Australian Women Online’ got as low as 3 million and then climbed to up to 282,000. Huh? According to the site stats recorded by my web host, the site traffic is actually higher than it’s ever been and yet, I have lost rank with Alexa.
Thank you for posting this. At least I now have some explanation as to what has been going on.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Worldβs Biggest Playgroup
I am one of those who has been hit, sigh. There are a few tech and blogging blogs that have seen an increase – Blogging Personal, On Blogging Australia, How to Live on Line…
Overall your analysis does seem right though.
Sueblimely’s last blog post..Blogger Appreciation Day
And I was one of the ones who went “WOOT! Wacky-do! What happened there?! Lovely :)”
(I don’t let these things play too important a role in my blogging, but still, I’ll take and help I can get ;))
Karen (Misc Mum)’s last blog post..The haircut to end all haircuts
I’m confused – my ranking has gone down. I think that’s what it means. So, does this mean the higher the number, the lower the ranking?
Kathie M. Thomas’s last blog post..Blogger Appreciation Day (Unofficial)
My ranking changed for the better. I still don’t understand Alexa or Technorati which is very erratic.
jen’s last blog post..Talking the talk
And if you think Alexa is confusing what do you make of Compete? My web stats figures and my Compete “rank” are going in completely opposite directions. March was the best month at my place by far since I scored a couple of diggs in Q3 2007, but you’d never know that from looking at the Alexa or Compete figures.
I know they’re not exactly accurate to start with, but really the only “metric” I’m interested in now are my web stats.
Thanks for the impromptu Top 100 update though Meg
John Lampard’s last blog post..Aussie workers least likely to misuse computers at work
Deborah – hopefully with these new changes your ranking will stabilise and better reflect your actual traffic, rather than those with just the toolbars…
Sueblimely – I probably should have looked at the percentage change rather than the overall movement. Case in point – ProBlogger. Though it *only* moved 9,000 – the jump from 3k to 12k is rather substantial. I guess it’s a curve thing…
Karen – π well done. As someone who perhaps doesn’t attract the *Alexa toolbar type*, glad to see your rank moving in the right direction.
Kathie – I noticed that and was a bit surprised. Yes, the goal is to move closer to #1, so the lower the number, the better. As a consolation, you did improve your Australia ranking though.
Jen – glad you improved. We can only hope these changes stabilise the rankings.
John – I haven’t looked at Compete for a while. It’s ok if you have a large US audience, but not so useful for the Aussie market.
What I do know is that I have another website (very non tech audience) that gets more traffic than my blog, yet still has an Alexa rank 77k more than my blog, so it seems in some cases the technology skew has not been entirely addressed. But hopefully step in the right direction…
I agree that internal web stats are really the only ones website owners should be interested in – just a shame they are not openly available, then I wouldn’t have to worry about the failings of Alexa at all π
I got hit, but I was expecting that anyway. I had a couple of insane bumps in traffic for specific posts which sent me to the Top 100. I was expecting to return to normal anyway, so I won’t be surprised to drop back to 101. π
But it will be interesting to see how the changes to Alexa’s ranking take shape. If it redresses the technical skew that they have had, it can only be a good thing.
cerebralmum’s last blog post..Journeys: Trams, trains, and ambulances andβ¦ The Dictatorship of Relativism?
CM – keep in mind that there have been big movements across the board so it may well be relative to others. In fact CM maintained the exact same position, and Blogging Personal jumped up the list a few spots slightly in front of CM. In terms of your traffic, do you see a correlation between Alexa rank and traffic?
I barely have a handle on how the rankings worked before, so I’ve no idea how the change will affect me. I’ve always wondered about the value of Alexa though, since it seemed only to count people who’d installed the toolbar. I assume that’s part of the reason for the tech skew and if they are addressing that then perhaps the new rankings will be an accurate picture.
Having said that I don’t think any of the metrics are definitive so no one measure is going to give the full picture. And then there’s the question of how you measure your blog’s success – it seems a lot of people put more store by their subscriber or comment numbers.
Anyway, I was just stoked to make it onto the list, even if it doesn’t last with the new changes.
Guera’s last blog post..Expat Schooling and The Cultural Divide
Looks like the changes are not so great for me. Ho hum. But then I did think my ranking was better than I really “deserved” anyway.
Lightening’s last blog post..Children Crave Adult Attention
Guera – I absolutely agree that your own internal measurement is most relevant – visitors, subscribers and comments all work together to form an overall picture. Unfortunately, most of that information isn’t publicly available, so when comparing blogs we have to work with what is
While your global rank dropped a little your AU rank improved, so that’s good
Lightening – No, not too bad really. Remember it’s all relative – so I’ll think you’ll find your position didn’t move much Glad to see you’re finally out of the Akismet sand trap π
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I have checked in at Alexa a couple of times this month and the numbers have been all over the shop. Then I saw Leigh’s Twitter about it and wandered over to see a huge (for me) difference.
Thanks for explaining it my lovely. Clear as mud here, LMAO
Kelley’s last blog post..Arsehats everywhere.
[…] I mentioned earlier, the Alexa ranking changes have had a considerable effect on the top 100 list. While there were only two blogs debuting, there […]
Alexa’s ranking system has always been so subjective so anything to improve it is in my opinion a huge step forward. Unless my ranking goes down, that is, then its bad LOL
Greg’s last blog post..More Red
Meg – Yes, I’ve always seen a correlation between my traffic and the Alexa ranking. My ranking changed a lot with the increase I got from being part of the Aussie Bloggers Forum. Obviously a lot of the members use the toolbar because we’ve discussed it a fair bit. With my big bumps on those two posts (which were tenfold+ increases) the average changed dramatically.
cerebralmum’s last blog post..Journeys: Trams, trains, and ambulances andβ¦ The Dictatorship of Relativism?
Definitely, Meg and I think the fact that you are taking the weighted average from a few different sources makes your calcs much more relevant than just looking at one. Even if you we could compare subscriber numbers (and I don’t think even the blogger has a completely accurate figure for that) that skews towards blogs attracting other bloggers (for the most part), as does the technorati ranking, and doesn’t tell us anything about traffic, which in some cases is probably more about SEO.
I don’t envy you the task of maintaining the list but I’m glad that you’re out there trying to make some sense of it and explaining it all to us! π
Guera’s last blog post..Expat Schooling and The Cultural Divide
Kelley, well you came out well in the wash, which is the main thing π Any Q’s – you have my email
Greg – or you could stay the same π
CM – well, that correlation is a lot more than most see, so that’s a good thing.
Guera – thanks, I certainly *hope* so.
So now that you’ve discounted just about every blog metric…. Yup, I’m over it too π (obsessing that is)
I am amazed how things can change and I still don’t understand it all. You did a great job explaining it.
Also a fantastic job of maintaining the list.
Babyamore’s last blog post..Smiley Saturday – Caturday
[…] feed. You can even subscribe by email! Thanks for visiting!Meg Tsiamis over at the rather splendid ‘Dipping into the Blogpond’ has put the cat amongst the […]
Well I am a happy vegemite in the top 50 Aussie blogs and I don’t understand how any of this works.
Suzie Cheel’s last blog post..All In Order
[…] presents Alexa Ranking Changes – What Effect will it have for Bloggers? posted at Dipping into the Blogpond saying “The skew Alexa shows towards websites of a […]
I have not really understood the rankings, this sheds a lot of light onto them for me – thanks!
PlanningQueen’s last blog post..10 Quick Ways to Feed Unexpected Lovely Visitors
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