Alexa does not work at all and we should not even recognize it as valid anymore from what I've learned.
You can game Alexa with as few as three machines running the Alexa toolbar.
So, let's see how high we can get Calacanis.com over the next five days shall we?
Step One: Everyone install the Alexa Toolbar and load my blog 100 times over the next couple of days. Please put your name below if you are taking part in the experiment. We're gonna do this for like 10 days then stop.
Step Two: Get a webpage refresher for Internet Explorer and set it to reload the page every 10 minutes or something random.
http://www.download.com/Refresher/3000-2356_4-10497539.html?tag=lst-0-2
http://www.download.com/Auto-URL-Refresher/3000-2381_4-10399160.html?tag=lst-0-1
Step Three: Load the main page (www.calacanis.com) and the about page ( http://www.calacanis.com/about/ ) so we can track the % impact we have in the details over at Alexa.
Update: Some folks have said I'm trying to do this to get my rating up/page views up. Uhhh.... no. This is a test. I don't have any ads here and these page views mean nothing to me--they are not real! They represent nothing but a test. Plus we are going to stop this test in 10 days or so--let's say Dec. 3rd. So, this is just a temporary spike in pages that does NOTHING for me on any level. Zero! If someone wants to run the test on a brand new domain name we can do that too.
Alexa is 100% wrong and you can game it with as few as three machines--or so I've been told.
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Reader Comments
(Page 1 of 4)3. okay....I'm a little confused. What do i do first?
Posted at 7:23PM on Nov 24th 2006 by kevin
5. im in.
Posted at 7:59PM on Nov 24th 2006 by jeremy
6. Richard: I have nothing to gain by using my site... I'm just doing that because I know my stats. Also, I don't want to point to someone else's site for an experiment like this and have them get upset because a) we hit them with bandwidth charges and b) we screwed up their advertising impressions (i.e. 100,000 views no clicks).
Since there is no advertising on this site there is nothing to gain by me doing it here. it's all academic because after the test the ranking should drop right back down.
best j
7. Jason, I'm with you on the point that Alexa's reporting seems dubious at best. And I'd like to be able to support that empirically, in reality I can, by running a traffic comparison analysis against my own logs (or anyone elses). Regardless, why would you choose your own site to run this experiment against? Seems a little disingenuous imho. :-(
Posted at 9:50PM on Nov 24th 2006 by Richard Ault
8. can we do this with techcrunch instead? :-)
Posted at 4:36AM on Nov 25th 2006 by michael arrington
9. I tried this last month with an Alexa-poor site and it's dropped from 240,000 to 134,000, and that's just by clicking the refresh button a dozen times everytime I visit it. By that measure, you should #1 in a week :-)
Posted at 5:06AM on Nov 25th 2006 by John Evans (Syntagma)
10. Man, I'm not sure how you missed this one, it has been known for a looong time. At least 3 years ago or more.
Posted at 6:28AM on Nov 25th 2006 by Mike Papageorge
11. Hmm.. I was supposed to link to some evidence:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum16/1075.htm
Posted at 6:30AM on Nov 25th 2006 by Mike Papageorge
12. I forget where I read this, but someone wise once said:
"Alexa is like horoscopes... Kinda fun to look at, but completely useless."
Posted at 7:48AM on Nov 25th 2006 by Jarid
13. so why not make your next venture an 'alexa that works'?
what you'll need, as nearly as i can tell, is a biz plan for establishing the most popular transparent online market for ad spaces
gaming a liquid market is prohibitively expensive, after all
of course, the more complements you offer w/ the 1.0 market, the better
so this biz plan will have to feature blueprints for establishing 1) the most complementary online market 2) the most complementary media offerings
(think: nasdaq + market for equities derivatives + cnbc)
more details upon request :-)
Posted at 10:07AM on Nov 25th 2006 by Frank Ruscica
14. Yeah, when is Google gonna do it right?
http://www.revenews.com/jimkukral/archives/001846.html
Posted at 10:27AM on Nov 25th 2006 by Jim Kukral
15. Good point Jason, and it was sooooo overdue that somebody says something about it. Just have a look at the related sites they are pointing to for some of the most popular web sites. It's ridiculous.
Anyway we don't believe spamming sites is a way to solve that. Let's just create something better that is not bound to tracking of mob movements or historic data.
But you're very right to put that up on the agenda as so many people are tracking the success of your web presence by an obviously broken mechanism. And of course somebody seemingly has to proof the facts out loud.
BTW: Never understood how their mover and shaker "selection" works (we once had a peak on our site that should have put us into the list but "surprisingly" while the numbers where shown when displaying the details for our site on Alexa some "small" movers were on their list. Must be a manual pick...
Posted at 11:30AM on Nov 25th 2006 by duvet-dayz.com
16. Encourage your readers to install Alexa toolbar to boost long-term Alexa ratings!
Whilst Alexa is easy to game, 99% of websites are not gaming Alexa. It is always obvious when they are.
Alexa is always best as a way to compare sites within a particular niche, and you obviously take any ratings with a pinch of salt.
You can game Technorati links just as easily, or as many people do, game a site like Digg.
One thing to realise is if you encourage your readers to install an Alexa toolbar, there is a good chance the Alexa rating of not only your site, but also the other sites they read, will increase.
I much prefer using the Search Status plugin for Firefox, at least it has some other useful functionality.
Posted at 11:43AM on Nov 25th 2006 by Andy Beard
17. Really disappointing Jason - Everyone knows how to game Alexa. I posted my thoughts on your post here:
http://www.centernetworks.com/jason-gaming-alexa
You have so much knowledge, why not share something more beneficial - that's the part we all want from you, a blog/web leader.
18. Allen: I think we need to understand exactly how easy this is... my blog hit the same level as Gawker last week with 20k pages in a day. I think Gawker gets 20x a day!
We need to either put an end to the Alexa obsession or we need to understand and fix it.
I think if Alexa had a Firefox plug in, and worked on Macs, they could increase the sample size to 5x more people and smooth out the gaming.
Also, they could easily count unique IPs to a site and discount one IP doing 100 pages a day. That's the big game going on right now... some site owners are having their 10 person teams browse their site with the Alexa toolbar... that causes sites with 1/10th the traffic to appear bigger than other sites.
Frankly, I'd like to see Google enable their toolbar and end all this nonsense.
Alexa needs to get their service in order or be invalidated as a resource.
19. Jason thanks for your update, I appreciate your honesty... though there is one incorrect note:
you state:
So, this is just a temporary spike in pages that does NOTHING for me on any level.
this is not correct: any spike on alexa remains as part of the "3 mos. Avg." - so the temporary immediate spike would remain
In addition you gain links to the site. And I think those links over there on the right --> are affiliate links. So yes, I would say there is some benefit gained.
:)
20. Jason, Alexa is crap. Always has been, always will be. you know it, I know it. I can't tell you how many times vendors tried to sell me on things that they used Alexa as their benchmark. I had fun with those vendors :)
I agree with you 100% that it should be removed as a point of validation for a site. Because I can tell you that there are sites with 1000x traffic than some of mine, but because mine is a tech site (not cn), it has a higher rank.
At my previous job, our target was stay-at-home moms. Do you think ANY mom has Alexa installed. I doubt it.
I do like your ideas in your comment.
Maybe you could start a petition to get Alexa to stop ranking sites or do as you suggest. Those things would be much better than showing that Alexa can be gamed.
BTW, It would be great to meet you at the SES next week after your speech which I will cover. :)
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1. I'm in Jason
Posted at 5:50PM on Nov 24th 2006 by Pat Phelan