What is Alexa Rank?
Alexa is a company owned by Amazon that specializes in web analytics. The Alexa ranking is a listing of as many domains as they have recorded, which means your site has traffic. They don’t judge anything, except for a recording of traffic.
Does Alexa Rank Matter?
Alexa is a case of “it shouldn’t but it does.” Alexa rank shouldn’t matter. It’s flawed and it’s skewed. The types of people who are likely to install the toolbar skew towards one particular demographic. Many industries don’t take advantage of or attract that demographic, and so they will always have a lower ranking on Alexa compared to smaller sites in the relevant industries. It would be like ranking websites according to the number of times they mention bread; bakeries and food sites would always rank higher. The types of people who care about Alexa persist in calling it a valuable metric, and spread the opinion through their audiences. As long as users are using the toolbar, Alexa continues to record data. As long as Alexa records data, advertisers and site traders are going to use the metric, regardless of its validity. As long as Alexa ranks to those few influential people, it’s going to persist.
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