Alexa began displaying website popularity rankings in 1998, with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. Alexa's rankings were generated through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use the Alexa Toolbar. Over time, Alexa became the standard by which website popularity was measured.
However, one of the biggest complaints with Alexa is while it's a useful tool, it's not all that accurate.
Well, apparently, Alexa is trying to change that. According to information on their website, they now aggregate data from multiple sources to give users a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users. They are normalizing the traffic from their global panel to provide consistently accurate rankings for all countries.
Alexa toolbar users' interests and surfing habits differed from those of the general population in a number of ways, and they describe some of those possible differences on their website.
Alexa claims the new rankings better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of web users.
Alexa says that they are constantly working to ensure that they provide the most useful data that they can, and will continue to fine tune their algorithms.
I tested out the "new" Alexa, before writing this article. So is it more accurate than before? To be perfectly honest, I didn't notice any discernible difference in the way Alexa performs. Its results are still way off when compared to my own statistical data.
But your mileage may vary.
Dale King is the owner of GuruKnowledge.org - The Ultimate Internet Marketing Resource!
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