Alexa Experiment and High School

by Sandy L on August 25, 2010

So, I’ve been blogging for about 5 weeks off and on and I thought I’d try and figure out what this Alexa business is all about.  For those of you who are just readers and not bloggers, Alexa is this little toolbar that you put on your header and it gives you a  ranking of the particular website you are visiting (Google is #1 for example). 

Alexa is kind of like a popularity contest and if you’re someone like Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, you’re the hot new girl that just transferred to your high school.  All the boys want to date you and all the girls want to be like you.  Then there’s Yakezie, the class president. He’s always thinking of new and fun ideas to bring everybody together. If you actually participate in his schemes, you might just get a little  more popular yourself.

I started blogging about 5 weeks ago and my rank went from 6MM to 688,888 in 5 weeks. I have no clue what drove it and if that’s good or bad progress, but I figured I would do a little experiment just for fun.  A couple of the sites I read said writing articles about Alexa may actually help your ranking. That seems odd, doesn’t it?

So here’s my experiment. Here’s my post on Alexa, and I’m going to see if my ranking actually changes more than it normally does in a week.

So, is Alexa Useful or is Alexa meaningless? Has it mattered to you personally? If so, is there a magic number where your blog started getting people’s attention? I also wonder if putting ads on the site increases your ranking, but I’m not ready to do that.

Alexa, Alexa, Alexa, Rah, Rah, Rah. Alexa, Alexa, Alexa, Rah, Rah, Rah.  Alexa, Alexa, Alexa, Rah, Rah, Rah. (Think that’ll score me some points?)

Feel free to participate in my social experiment.

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Nicole August 25, 2010 at 9:56 PM

hee! I like the experiment! Though the guest post and just blogging will probably increase your hits over the week… are you going to use the week after that as an additional control?

We’re not hooked up with Alexa or Yakezie. The former because it sounds like effort, the latter because a. I haven’t looked into it that hard and b. I’m not sure we really qualify as personal finance. We’re like 2/7 personal finance right now.

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Everyday Tips August 26, 2010 at 9:55 AM

I find Alexa frustrating. I think a lot of my readers do not have the toolbar, so my stats may not truly reflect my ranking. I say that only because my readership has increased quite a bit the last few weeks, but my Alexa ranking has completely stalled at 130,000.

For Nicole, the Yakezie also has a ‘Lifestyle’ section, so it doesn’t have to be 100 percent personal finance. I write a lot about both Life and Money, and they let me in! 🙂

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Nicole August 26, 2010 at 2:44 PM

ET– I did not know that. I will have to talk with Dr. Maggie about it.

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