Google PageRank and Alexa Traffic Ranking Explained

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Google PageRank and Alexa Traffic Ranking Explained

July 2nd, 2007 | 15 comments

Here is something that’s always misunderstood - Website Ranking!

I won’t pretend to know exactly what’s going on at Google or Alexa but I will tell you what I do know about the ranking systems and it goes like this:

Google PageRank (PR)

There are two types of Google PR, “toolbar PR” and the actual PR that is given to each site. Actually, they are not two different “types” of PR, let me explain…

The Google Toolbar PR is what we see in the Google Toolbar, if you have it installed and enabled, that shows a reading of that particular pages rank, as seen by Google. This is a reading of the actual PR and it’s updated roughly every 3 months or so. (Updates normally take place every 2 to 4 months)

The actual PR is updated very frequently. I couldn’t begin to tell you exactly when it’s updated, nor could anyone else other than a select few at Google, but it’s updated much more frequently than the toolbar PR.

Many new marketers believe that when the toolbar PR updates their sites will either gain visitors or lose visitors. This is simply not true.

The only update that Google does that will increase or decrease your site visitors is their algorithm updates, which are done just about every day. The algorithm is the extremely complex formula that Google uses to rank Website pages. Also, each page within a Website is looked at, not the Website as a whole.

Alexa Traffic Ranking

This is the ranking that is provided by Alexa.com. This is based on the actual traffic going to a Website whereas Google PR is calculated mainly by the number and quality of inbound links to a specific page and not traffic.

The ranking is done with numbers as the Website with the most traffic on the Internet (currently Yahoo) would have a traffic ranking of 1 and those with very little traffic would be in the millions.

The Alexa traffic ranking has a reputation for being inaccurate. But, generally a Website with an Alexa traffic ranking of 50,000 or less receives quite a bit of traffic.

The Alexa ranking is based off the figures they collect from those who have their toolbar installed. This is why you’ll notice many technology and Internet Marketing related sites with higher Alexa rankings. It’s another reason why it’s known to be inaccurate.

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15 comments

money maker
14th July, 2007 at 6:04 am

One thing I think that is important to mention, is where these measures are taken.

in the case of alexa rankings,
it’s only from those people having the alexa toolbar installed, wich make more tech oriented websites rate higher than “common people” oriented websites.

still, thanks for a nice article (Y)
Josh Spaulding
14th July, 2007 at 2:50 pm

You’re exactly right. I forgot to mention that.

It’s very common for a travel Website, for instance, to tank much worse with Alexa then a home business or technical Website for the exact reason mention above.

Alexa bases their rankings on the traffic analyzed by their own toolbar.

In most cases the “average joe” doesn’t need to install this toolbar. Internet Marketers, bloggers and techies would be more opt to dowload the alexa toolbar so naturally these types of sites will have a higher Alexa ranking.

Thanks for that!
Josh Spaulding’s Internet Marketing Don’ts
23rd July, 2007 at 6:10 am

[...] 3. Don’t base your opinion of a Website on it’s Google PR or Alexa Traffic rank. These systems are flawed! I won’t go into this one much since I posted about it here. [...]
Squeaky (1 comments.)
5th January, 2008 at 11:41 pm

I really do not have much faith in Alexa because it is very inaccurate. Another fact is that there is no Alexa toolbar for Vista users. It is very sad that many people still make their decision based upon Alexa traffic.
Josh Spaulding
6th January, 2008 at 1:23 am

It’s very inaccurate when it comes to non-tech/marketing related sites, but they’re doing better at least with taking care of ways to fake it, although it’s still possible.
Victor (10 comments.)
7th March, 2008 at 3:07 pm

I have one of those PR/Alexa indicators in my firefox browser. For this page it says PR1 and Alexa 68,627. I wish there was
a tool bar that showed where a page ranks in the google/yahoo/msn search results.
Anyone?
Josh Spaulding
7th March, 2008 at 3:11 pm

@ Victor - I don’t know of one for Firfox. You can download SearchStatus and it will display your serp rankings and a lot more stuff within the SERPS below the listing.
Victor (10 comments.)
7th March, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Thanks Josh, I did a search for “download SearchStatus ” and it took me to a firefox plugin version. I installed it and it appears to be working fine.
Internal Linking and PageRank Leakage
18th March, 2008 at 3:16 pm

[...] If you’ve been online for more than a day, you know what Google PageRank (PR) is. You may also know that PR is calculated on a page by page basis rather than on a site by site basis as well. Many people are confused about pagerank, thinking it’s worthless. The PR that so many people say is worthless is the toolbar PR, but that’s a whole other story that I explained in a post titled Google PageRank and Alexa Ranking Explained. [...]
WebDiggin (12 comments.)
19th March, 2008 at 6:29 am

Squeaky - we use Vista and the firefox alexa toolbar works fine for us. (But, you’r right there’s no internet explorer toolbar for vista)

Josh - what’s the significance of Technorati ranking. Sure you can have a bunch of sites that link to you to gain authority, but in practice does it mean anything? Do people actually find blogs through technorati? (Presumably a higher authority would rank you higher in their results)
Josh Spaulding
19th March, 2008 at 1:26 pm

@ Web - It’s just another rank that bloggers can look at to feel better about themselves

Although I have had a few people tell me they found my blog through technorati, it doesn’t drive much traffic at all.
Maurice (TheCaymanHost) (60 comments.)
21st March, 2008 at 5:15 am

I’ve written a bit about Alexa in the past but although my domain continues to grow traffic wise every month, the Alexa ranking, after regular improvement month after month has recently seen a steady decline from a shade over 100K to 168K!

I don’t worry too much about this and can only assume that the number of visitors using the toolbar has not grown in proportion to the overall number…or something :0) but it doesn’t really reflect the true traffic growth that takes place for many bloggers and webmasters.
Duplicate Content - It May Not be so Bad
26th May, 2008 at 4:28 pm

[...] Search queries are returned based on hundreds, possibly thousands, of different variables within Googles algorithm, but PageRank™ plays the biggest role. (To learn the difference between toolbar PR (useless) and actual Pagerank (Important) see my explanation of Google PageRank and Alexa Traffic Ranking.) [...]
Rata (3 comments.)
2nd June, 2008 at 7:02 pm

Josh,

I for my part ignore Alexa Traffic Ranking utterly.
It’s not worth to give it any thoughts.

My PR is worthful and I had grief and despair in November when it droped from 4 to 3.
A month ago I got it back – hard work involved – and you can see me smiling … … again …

Kind regards
Rata
Josh Spaulding
2nd June, 2008 at 7:04 pm

@ Rita - I’m totally opposite. Alexa Traffic Ranking, while still not 100% accurate, is more accurate than ever, while Google toolbar PR is more inaccurate than ever.