Alexa rank worsened as Google Analytics shows the traffic is improving rapidly? | Personal Finance & Lifestyle | Yakezie Forums

Post edited 3:22 pm – February 25, 2013 by michael @ financial ramblings

Alexa is easily gamed and isn't always strongly correlated with traffic. It's based on the number of visits to your site by people with the Alexa toolbar installed. So lower traffic sites who have a disproportionate number of visitors with the toolbar installed may have a better ranking that higher traffic sites with fewer toolbar users.

Thus, Alexa ranks are quite often inflated (or should I say deflated?) relative to traffic for sites in certain niches (or for those who are members of certain groups — like Yakezie). So it's quite possible that your traffic is growing even though Alexa doesn't reflect it. Likewise, Alexa can improve even without an appreciable increase in traffic — so long as the right people are visiting.

An increase in traffic as shown in Google analytics doesn't necessarily translate to an improvement in Alexa ranking because your Alexa rank is relative to the traffic of other websites.  For example, if your traffic increased by 1,000 but other websites increased theirs by 2,000 your Alexa ranking might show a drop in ranking although your traffic increased.

Alexa represents a much smaller subset of users than Analytics.  It provides good data but the growth from Analytics is much more important to track and place focus on.