Web Information and Ranking with Alexa

Web Information and Ranking with Alexa
by Britney MayCom
comment...

With billions of web documents, directories and search engines it can be difficult to find reliable sources of quality information. Some companies, like Google and Alexa, have undertaken the daunting task of giving ratings to web pages. The web information and website ranking company Alexa was founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat. It is currently run by Chief Executive Officer Niall O'Driscoll.

Their tracking system ranks web pages, allows users to find traffic information, what sites link to it and even the "Wayback Machine," which allows users to view a web site from a previous date. Web users may install the Alexa toolbar to search their directory and find rating information on the sites users visit. They also crawl the Internet, much like Google, searching for updates and new pages. Alexa is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon (purchased in 1999 for $250 million) located in San Francisco, California.

1. Get a Rating

Any page that is visited by a user of Alexa's toolbar will be included in their rating system. The ratings typically favor those pages visited by users of the toolbar, giving the ranks a slight bias towards those that opt-in. This web usage tracking has drawn much criticism and is considered Adware or Spyware by many virus detection programs.

2. Improve your Rating

Before we get into the ways you can better your page rank, it should be noted that pages ranked under 100,000 in their respective countries will be slightly irregular and imprecise in their rank. Foremost, every web administrator should be putting new, unique, relevant, timely and creative content on their site on a regular basis. This is the biggest factor related to Google pagerank, Alexa Rating, and overall popularity of a site. Another factor contributing to improved ratings is the use of the Alexa toolbar in your browser. We recommend installing the toolbar so that when you visit your companies site it is credited in the ratings system. While we haven't tried them, some suggest that the Alexa website widget and using redirects will help.

3. Sypware

Anti-virus software Symantec, McAfee Site Advisor, Adaware and Spybot: Search and Destroy all flag the Alexa toolbar as an "unwanted program" or "spyware." While it is true that Alexa will send your surfing information back to google it is not the only company that collects this kind of information. Big companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, DoubleClick and MSN are also doing this kind of web traffic monitoring. Right or wrong, big brother or simple optimization, your browsing is very likely being watched, at least in some cases being put to good use organizing the Internet.

4. Wayback Machine

In Alexa's own words, the Wayback Machine is a "directory in three dimensions" allowing people to see a snapshot of a page from a year back. I looked back at the Health and Human Services site to get an idea of where we were medically a year ago.