It is a known fact that site rankings are essential to identifying whether or not a website’s online marketing strategies are even working. Many sites use different methods and subscribe to various ranking services for this purpose. For internet users, a site’s rankings determines the website’s credibility relative to how many people rely on it for pertinent information.

Alexa is just one of the many tools that webmasters and internet users, alike, utilize to determine how a site is faring where online popularity is concerned. While there are still those who choose to rely on this tool, there are many others who are switching towards more effective metrics. Alexa has been subjected to much criticism for the past few years mainly because of the credibility of its data as well as its security.

About Alexa

The tool was developed by Alexa Internet, Inc. to measure website statistics. It comes with basic features that can be found in similar tools including a pop-up blocker and a search entry box. While the makers of the metrics claims to have garnered millions of downloads for their toolbar when it was released, they didn’t provide any vital information on how many of them are actually being used.

Concerns

One of the many criticisms connected to the use of the Alexa metrics has something to do with privacy and security. Because the tool is designed to generate information about the website from Alexa itself, usage trails are saved. The company or event the product itself doesn’t even volunteer information on how long the data stays with them. Many anti-spyware programs have already marked it as spyware because third-party programs are also apt to distribute it to unwilling receivers.

The credibility of the data that the Alexa feeds is also in question. Many are still wondering whether the system has a sample size that is enough for it to provide accurate estimates of web traffic. Alexa is designed to provide site rank information daily, at the same time including the data taken from the previous weeks and months. Most of its samples are purportedly composed of webmasters and internet marketers thereby causing bias on the information being generated.

On the whole, Alexa is still usable for checking on competitor site traffic but relative to other similar tools or metrics, it will still need to go through massive improvements to attain substantial credibility. One can probably use it as a minor tool but for the most part, most users are better off without it.

Many webmasters are also wondering about Alexa’s usefulness in internet marketing. What do you think?