Alexa.com ranks web sites based on how popular they are, with sites like Yahoo, MSN, Google, and eBay in the top twenty, and many others ranked among the thousands or millions. Good Alexa ratings can be of significant value in helping web sites gain advertisers and is also of value for comparing how popular similar web sites are.

To check your site’s Alexa ranking, visit alexa.com and click the “Traffic Ranking” tab near the top of the screen. Then enter the web site URL. The next page should show a screenshot of its home page, its popularity ranking, trends regarding traffic increases or decreases, which countries it is the most popular in, and other information. While ratings like 450,000 or 873,000 may seem poor to people unfamiliar with Alexa, they are actually fairly good; many millions of web sites are ranked by Alexa. Some or all of this information, including the traffic ratings, may not be available for relatively new or little-known web sites. If the home page screen shot is outdated, there is a way to request that Alexa update it; see their help section for details.

Alexa determines traffic ratings for web sites by monitoring the sites visited by people using their optional toolbar software, so their rating may or may not be an accurate reflection of how popular a web site is. The toolbar requires users to have Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Firefox for a browser, so visitors with Apple, Linux, or DOS operating systems are never counted in the ratings. Also, IE 6.0 requires at least Windows 98. This puts web sites which cater to an audience with older computer systems or alternative operating systems at a disadvantage. The ratings are of little value or importance to sites which lack advertising or use services like Google Adsense or Yahoo! Publisher Network to generate advertising revenue.

Overall, while good Alexa ratings are of value and importance to some, they are not absolutely necessary for gaining advertisers. A web site’s Google PageRank and rankings on other traffic ranking systems (ranking.com, quantcast.com) might also be considered, and advertisers can be provided with information from the site’s own statistics as well. If your web site has a good Alexa ranking, this can be of great value and should be pointed out; if not, point to different statistics, and keep in mind that some advertisers may not have even heard of Alexa.

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