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| Brent nailed this one. The drop in rankings is due to the fact that
the Alexa rankings are based upon that that spyware toolbar. In the
past few months, there has been a huge reduction in spyware because of
the very effective methods which have been implemented to prevent and
remove it. For example, Yahoo used to be just about useless 18 months
ago because of all the spyware, trojans, and viruses that were sent
through it. Now Yahoo blocks everything that even looks like it could
be a problem. I have found that I can't even send people completely
legitimate executable files through Yahoo anymore.
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:41:35 -0600, "Brent Hanson - LASIKFRAUD.com"
<brent@nospam_lasikfraud.com> wrote:
>1) Alexa rankings are absolutely meaningless. Alexa even publicly admits
>that any rankings above the 100,000 mark are worthless.
>
>2) Alexa officially gets its rankings from a SPYWARE toolbar users must
>intentionally install on their browser.
>
>3) It is a fairly simply matter for a web master to skew the rankings. I
>once manipulated the rankings of my own site for a few days for
>entertainment. Don't believe it? Here are some quotes from web master
>forums.
>
>========================================
>http://forums.searchenginewatch.com...18741#post18741
>========================================
>"Alexa Rankings are even easier to manipulate than SE ones. Install the bar
>on your site and set it as your home page. Also, there are companies that
>actually "sell" it by operating auto-click solutions."
>
>========================================
>http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/18211-3-10.htm
>========================================
>"If you want to be in the top 100 it is easy. All you need is a coputer with
>a macro program on it. Have it surf through your site all day long. You can
>add several other computers and you will rock. It does not care if it is
>from the same IP. "
>
>========================================
>http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum5/4964.htm
>========================================
>"alexa rankings are totally useless. They are easily manipulated with
>scripts and are on a daily basis.(to make it look like a website gets more
>traffic than it really does)"
>
>========================================
>http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156775
>========================================
>yea, alexa rank is completely capable of manipulation. I know a site where
>two of the staff using the toolbar raised the rank from a 18,000 to 2,000.
>
>"I hate alexa... It's got all my sites so wrong... I can't believe ANYONE
>takes it as accurate. If google did a thing like this or yahoo, the big
>toolbars, we might believe it, but how many people have the alexa
>toolbar..."
>
>"So can Alexa through crap like alexabooster.com"
>
>"Actually this isn't true at all. Alexa is completely worthless. Here is a
>thread that gives examples of small sites manipulating Alexa rankings so
>that they rank higher than sites that get over 10 times the traffic:
>http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153286 The thread even
>contains a Java script that allows you to manipulate your own Alexa ranking.
>"
>
>"Based on what I have seen - using Alexa to estimate site traffic is a worse
>alternative to guessing."
>
>"You guys that like Alexa - how can you explain that a site with around 3
>million page views per month is ranked much higher than a site with well
>over 30 million page views per month. This is how it is in my industry. You
>are going to have a hard time convincing me that Alexa has any value at
>all."
>
>========================================
>http://forums.seochat.com/archive/t-12647
>========================================
>"The secret that most newcomers to SEO love Alexa, is that because the more
>you focus on it, the higher your site ranks! I fell into this trap some time
>ago! I kept on visiting my site 10-20 times a day, and i was impressed! My
>site jumped to the top 100,000 in no time! But now, as i realized all this
>is fake, i uninstalled the toolbar, and my site is slowly drifting back to
>the 1,000,000th position!!  "
>
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