What is Alexa?

The more people use Alexa, the more useful it becomes.

I recently added the Alexa toolbar in an effort to lower my alexa rank. When I first installed it my rank was over 2 million! Yikes! Within a couple days it was half that! I am happy to report that it is now just under 800,000! I would be happier it were less but that takes time...

How Alexa works:

A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of Reach and Pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site.

When someone with the Alexa Toolbar installed visits a page, and clicks to other pages within that site, it lowers that pages ranking. The lower the number the better! Companies looking to have their products featured, reviewed or offer giveaways want a lower number (google is currently #1). That means if you as a reader or blogger have the toolbar installed you are helping blogs get better prizes from bigger companies!

                                                                             Where the Alexa Icon sits in your toolbar (Chrome). If you click on it, you can see the alexa rank #, reviews, how many sites link to it, etc.

Non-Bloggers:
You don't need to be a blogger to install this toolbar. In fact, I recommend to everyone that they install it. It only takes a few seconds and it literally helps every site you go to! Even mine! How you are helping:

• Just visiting a page!
• When you click through a sites pages
• Reviewing a page! If you click the icon it shows you how many reviews a site has. You can read others and write one yourself. This also helps your favorite pages' rank. You can try it out by doing one now hint, hint...

Bloggers:
Now that you know more about how it works here's what you need to do to lower your numbers.

1. Download the toolbar from here.
2. Claim your site
3. Put an Alexa review button on your site
4. Let your readers know about the importance of the toolbar. A blog post, an Alexa button, etc.
5. Join Alexa hops like the ones I'll share below
6. Putting a traffic widget will help with PR