Is Alexa Rank and Google Page Rank really that important?

This is a tricky one and something I have been thinking about for quite some time. Having a high Alexa or Google rank can be a way of trying to quantify a website’s value, which is especially important if you are going to sell it or intend to sell advertising. The problem I have with it is that Alexa and Google rankings can be cheated.

I will give you an example of how people do this. Suppose you and ten of your mates all have websites that you visit every day. You could do a deal that you promise to visit each other’s sites daily with the Alexa toolbar installed. The toolbar will report back to Alexa that there have been more visitors lately and your rank will go up. Because only a small percentage of people actually have the toolbar installed, Alexa has to base the figures that they present on projections. For example, if only 1% of people use the Alexa toolbar, their final projections must be multiplied by 100. It’s quite easy to see how just a few people can make a massive difference to a small website’s results. There are even websites popping up now that automate this system for you. You install a bit of software which makes your site visit everyone else’s. In return, you and everyone get a higher rank, and the software owners siphon off some of the visitors which they then sell for advertising.

Another thing to consider is that site demographics will also affect results. Visitors to websites about Alexa and Google rankings are more likely to be interested in such things and are therefore much more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed on their system.

The same is true with Google, but I think things are a little more complex. The Google PageRank system is based on inbound links which count as a vote in favour of a particular website. If you are lucky enough to already own a few high-ranking websites, it’s pretty easy to artificially boost the ranking of a new site. You could in fact set up a website that has no value at all and link a dozen or so very highly ranked sites to it, which would result in another highly ranked site.

I believe most of these problems get ironed out when a site is truly massive. The top 100 websites in the Alexa rankings are all deservedly placed.

I think the truth of the matter is that it’s almost impossible to quantify a website’s “worth” using mathematics alone. Algorithms employed by the best search engines are extremely advanced, but they are nowhere near perfect.