For those of you who have come across the ranking site, Alexa.com, you may have been disappointed to see how your site was doing even though it may have been receiving decent traffic. While the site can be useful in some instances, you really need to know how it works to be able to understand why the figures are not always accurate.

Basically Alexa.com is a system which monitors and measures the number of times a website has been visited, regardless ofthe type of cheap web hosting that its on and uses this information to create a rankings table, giving you your “Alexa Ranking”. In order for your internet visits to count towards any site, you need to download the Alexa Toolbar, and have that installed on the browser you use. This is how the site is able to monitor and note your internet activity.

Unfortunately, Alexa.com has a reputation for being popular in a limited number of social groups, mainly website developers and programmers and because of this the figures are not accurate. If you have a site which does not necessarily interest these specific groups of internet users then the chances are you will not rank very well, however if you have a good design site or coding site, then you have a good chance of ranking higher than you really should.

So the next time you see someone quote their Alexa Ranking as a measurement of how popular their site is, do not put too much weight on this figure, and check basic backlinks and page rank for a better all round view.