Alexa Toolbar Sucks. Here’s Why…
As some of you may know, I do my work on my laptop… well I should say “notebook” because it’s huge and stops the blood circulation to my legs when it’s on my lap. But that’s another story. Where was I going with this…?
Oh yeah, my notebook runs on Windows Vista. The Alexa Toolbar does not work on Vista. So, I did some searching around and found some suggestions for those Vista users who might want some alternative.
Alexa Toolbar Rocks!
(I know you’re confused, I just said it sucks… so here’s why)
- It works with Internet Explorer… I’ve got that.
- It works with Firefox… I’ve got that too.
But when I go to http://www.alexa.com/site/download I get the following message:
“The toolbar currently does not work with Windows Vista. We are working on a fix and hope to release it soon. Sorry for the inconvenience!”
WHAT!? They hope to release it “soon”? I really hate the word “soon”. Why? Because it’s very often used instead of the word “never”. That’s right. I think I can recall seeing that same message a number of months ago. Nothing new to report.
So here are a few suggestions:
Richard Lee wrote about these alternatives back in November. Here’s the link to that post:
For now, can someone PLEASE tell me what my Alexa rank is!? If you’re running Vista too, you might as well make a good guess for me.
;)
- Aaron Brandon
According to Alexa you’re at 121,794 and moving UP.
Regards,
Mohamed
Comment by Mohamed — January 18, 2008 at 8:19 am
[...] http://www.aaronbrandon.com/?p=222 [...]
Pingback by Online Internet Business Opportunities » Blog Archive » Alexa could save your life…well, ok your blog! — January 18, 2008 at 9:31 am
Good link bait article. Should do well in the search engines and social media sites too!
Anytime you write about Alexa, you are certain to get some traffic!
Comment by Tyler — January 18, 2008 at 9:47 am
121,794
I installed the toolbar a while back on my Vista machine with Firefox and it doesn’t seem to keep up with switching between tabs.
You could also just go to alexa.com and query your site in their search box for the answer.
Comment by Steven Lohrenz — January 18, 2008 at 10:28 am
122,051
If you’re using Firefox, get the Search Status plugin:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/321
It will show your Alexa rating. It will also show your Google PageRank and compete.com rank.
Comment by Laura — January 18, 2008 at 11:48 am
Hi Aaron,
You can find out your Alexa ranking by going to Alexa.com and typing in your domain name. It will give you traffic statistics for your site. (Unless they’ve changed things from the last time I looked there.) Of course, without the Alexa toolbar your visits to your site won’t add to your traffic data.
Best regards,
Karen
Comment by Karen — January 18, 2008 at 11:52 am
Aaron;
Don’t know if you’re being funny or not, but you probably know you can go to http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500 and enter any URL to see its Alexa ranking… yours is currently: 121,794.
Fred
Comment by Fred Black — January 18, 2008 at 11:52 am
You’re at 121,794. I’m using Search Status from http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ with Firefox to check Alexa ratings. Have you tried it? Does it work with Vista? (I’m still on XP and I’ll stay that way as long as possible!)
- Dan Moran
Comment by Internet Business Bench — January 18, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Alexa: 121,794
Actually, it’s Vista that sucks.
Cheers,
Trevor
Comment by Fat-Loss Secret — January 18, 2008 at 12:15 pm
You don’t post my comments, usually, but just in case…
Screw all these toolbars — Alexa, Digg, Google, Sucks, OurSpaceOnYourComputer, etc. Why aren’t they PAYING us to rent space on our desktops?
And why did you give Bill Gates more $ for another buggy piece of bloatware?
Comment by Dave — January 18, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I’m with Tyler and Fred on this one. Seems like a funny question to ask. Is this a way to attract visitors who have Alexa toolbars installed?
Comment by Martin Russell — January 19, 2008 at 1:57 am
Martin,
I think you hit the nail on the head. it’s a proven fact that any article about “Alexa’ Problems” will bring a high percentage of Alexa users to the site…thus increasing the site’s Alexa ranking. It’s a good strategy and I certianly can’t fault Aaron for using it. Everyone else does and so would I if I had a site in the niche.
Comment by Tyler — January 19, 2008 at 8:04 am
Here’s another reason why search engine toolbars suck:
They typically “call home” and report the URLs of the web pages that you visit. Privacy issues aside, this can be a big problem if you are selling information products and you visit one of your own secret download pages. That URL will now be reported to the search engine. You don’t want your product download pages to be indexed!
There’s more info in a blog post I wrote a while back:
Browser toolbars reveal more than you think
Comment by Nick Dalton — January 21, 2008 at 11:12 am
Nick,
Can you not use a on your download pages to prevent them from being indexed?
Comment by Tyler — January 21, 2008 at 1:32 pm
That las comment shoud read “use a “no index, no follow” on the download pages
Comment by Tyler — January 21, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I think alexa is grossly inaccurate since a lot of people do have the vista program - that means people who do not have the toolbar or people who have vista like myself that go to your website - it is not getting counted. I think many websites have decreased this year with vista just for that reason.
Comment by The Mommy Blogger — January 22, 2008 at 12:04 pm