Internet Marketing Toolbox

Just a few days ago (April 15) Alexa made an announcement that their “new” ranking system was now available.

If you don’t already know, for years Alexa has had a toolbar that users can download onto their web browser. As these users surfed the web, the toolbar sent data back to Alexa to help determine the “popularity” of web sites across the globe.

The big problem with the Alexa measure of popularity is that it is based on a certain demographic - i.e. a more techno-savvy, maybe even slightly geeky type of internet user - or someone who understands how to install and use the tools that come with the toolbar.

In other words - NOT a true representation of the “average” Internet user…

Still… the Alexa ranking could give web site owners some “idea” of how popular their site was compared to others.

And if you didn’t have many people with the toolbar visit your site, you just weren’t “popular”.

But now Alexa is

(aggregating) data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

About time

I might start paying a little more attention to those rankings now…

Popularity: 16% [?]