Improved Ranking at Alexa

The folks at Alexa have announced that their ever so popular (but, many might argue, often inaccurate) ranking system for web sites has been altered. The official word on the changes is slightly vague: Alexa claims “better rankings,” and “improved methodology,” but doesn’t go into detail.

One change, however, is definitely a big one: Alexa is now using several sources for its rankings. So far, Alexa has measured rankings of web sites according to the users of their Alexa Toolbar, and this was the main source of users’ and experts’ criticism. For one, the Toolbar is not available for all platforms (you can’t get it for a Mac, and that’s why Mac-oriented sites have always ranked poorly on Alexa). Secondly, the Toolbar was reportedly mostly used by the tech-savvy demographic which are interested in rankings, and therefore various technology and SEO sites were perhaps unfairly well ranked.

Now, the Toolbar is not the only source of data anymore, although Alexa doesn’t elaborate on what exactly these other sources are. While this certainly sounds like an improvement, until we get the details about these mystical new data sources, it’s hard to assume that Alexa is more or less accurate. What do you think? Has the Alexa ranking for your website changed? Please let us know in the comments.

Update: if you’re wondering why the “max” setting shows only the last 9 months, it’s because the old data is no longer available. This is a big drawback, as one of Alexa’s biggest strengths was the fact that they had data for several years back. Luckily, the change is only temporary; nevertheless, they can expect thousands of emails from angry users who’ll want their old data past the 9 months range.