Changes in Alexa Ranking Overnight

Unfortunately we do not have any authentic ranking system for websites based on their traffic stats. Alexa is the only thing we have…many internet Gurus and bloggers will not agree this as a proper judge, but still we has to care it since we do not have any. Many webmasters consider Alexa ranking system because some advertisers decide the prices of ad spots based on their Alexa ranks.

Ok coming to the point…Alexa had made a new statement that they had changed their ranking system. The announcement goes like this

When Alexa began displaying rankings in 1998 it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. We generated the rankings through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use the Alexa Toolbar. Since that time we’ve been delighted to see that the Alexa Rankings have become a yardstick by which website popularity is measured. We are grateful to the thousands of people who come to Alexa.com each day to check the Alexa Rankings.

In recent months we’ve heard from our Alexa users that understanding Internet usage beyond Alexa Toolbar users was increasingly of interest. Ask and you shall receive!

We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

You gave us many other suggestions as well, and we are working hard to implement them. We won’t tell any secrets just yet, but you can expect to see new features rolled out over the coming weeks and months.

Below are a few common questions we anticipate from the Alexa community, along with our answers.

My site’s ranking has changed. Was it wrong before?

Why are the long range graphs gone? I can only get 9 months of historical data.

Will you change the rankings again?

I liked the old rankings better. Are they still available somewhere?

You can get the answers here

My observations

Actually their stats were based on Alexa Toolbar users only…but in their announcement they are clearly pointing out that they have improved some factors for ranking the websites. It takes some time for webmasters to learn the new factors. Till then what all we can do is observation.

According to me the alexa ranking has significantly dropped for many blogs including the biggies in the field. Anyhow mine is a very new blog, it takes some time to get the numbers. Can I know the effect of new Alexa ranking on your blogs?