Alexa(an Amazon company) is just another way for people to rank your website by the amount of traffic it receives. Alexa doesn’t use some super-duper complex algorithm to determine your site’s ranking, but rather how many people with the Alexa toolbar have viewed it.

How exactly does Alexa determine it’s rankings?

Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview. The site with the highest combination of users and pageviews is ranked #1.

Why You Should Increase Your Alexa Ranking

There are a few reasons to be concerned with your Alexa rank if you are currently monetizing your blog or plan to in the future. Since services like PayPerPost, TextLinkAds, and ReviewMe use Alexa rankings as part of their algorithm to determine your blog’s worth to advertisers; the higher your rank, the more offers you’ll be approved for or be capable of doing.

We know by now that all of our visitors aren’t being documented by Alexa, since it requires your visitor to have the Alexa toolbar installed at the time of viewing to be counted. If your target audience is technically inclined, it’s unlikely they’ll be using Internet Explorer, and if they are, they probably do not have the Alexa toolbar installed. On the other hand, lots of webmasters have the plugin or toolbar installed– so you have to consider your demographic.

So, we know we need a higher Alexa rank to make more money, but it’s mostly out of our control, right? Not exactly. There are a few ways to increase your Alexa rank and make more money with your blog without asking your viewers to install the Alexa toolbar.

How To Increase Your Alexa Ranking

Use Alexa Redirects
http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.yourdomain.com
An Alexa redirect is one way Alexa can monitor your visitors without them having to have the toolbar installed. A redirect link simply puts your visitors through Alexa before getting to your homepage without the visitor noticing any difference. Use this in MyBlogLog, forum signatures, internal links, blog comments, anything you can imagine.

I have heard people say they went from a 4 million rank to 90,000 within a few weeks using this technique. Others say this technique doesn’t make a difference, so you’ll just have to try it out for yourself.

Imagine the increase in revenue you’re going to see from your advertising agencies when your rank increases like that. You can take this one step further by adding a 1px by 1px iframe to your sidebar loading the alexa redirect URL. This way you can ensure every visitor is tracked. Tricky, right? Just be sure you realize the impacts of your website being loaded twice over for every visitor.

Install the Firefox Extension
Install the Alexa Firefox Extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the easiest way to get a few extra hits…

Install the Widget
Put the Alexa widget on your site. Each click on your Alexa widget is counted as a hit.

Alexa Autosurfs
I’m not sure if I would ever consider this, but you can read more about Alexa Autosurfs here.

Social Networking
Use the redirect link in a MySpace bulletin, use it on your profile, use it as a signature for when you leave comments to others, etc. There are many more social sites than MySpace, too. Virb, Facebook, etc.

Instant Messenger Profiles
If you have a lot of friends on your instant messenger contact list, it could be beneficial to use your redirect in your IM profile or away messages.

For Real Alexa Ranking Increase

Consider marketing strategies you would normally use, just use the Alexa redirect URL when you link back to your site. Think outside of the box, but use proven strategies that work.

Remember that there are generally two demographics that have the toolbar installed: People with Internet Explorer that have unintentionally installed the toolbar and webmasters who have the toolbar or Firefox extension installed themselves. Write something that caters to them and remember that the rank is only calculated from viewers to your root URL: www.yourdomain.com.

If every one of my readers installs the Firefox plugin, I’ve accomplished something by writing this article. See how it works?

If you have any comments or have tried any of the above techniques, let us know how they affected your ranking!