UnMasking the New Alexa Algorithm

[BellisimaJ.]

Graham, the founder of Entrecard unmasks the basis for the new algorithm:

Ok, ok. So it certainly isn’t breaking news that Alexa changed their ranking algorithm. The story is so last week. However, a lot of people have asked me about Alexa’s new algorithm, and what it’s based on. Everyone knows that it used to be based on the number of people with the Alexa toolbar installed visiting your site. Apparently, people were steadily ditching the spyware Alexa Toolbar, so to stay on top of the game, they had to grow and adapt.
Enter the New Algorithm

So, about two weeks ago, Alexa changed their Algorithm. No longer was it based on people with their toolbar visiting your site. It was now based on some new top-secret sauce. Across the board, ranks dropped tremendously.  For example, Problogger and John chow went from around 2500 to 12,000 and 17,000 respectively. Alexa is tight-lipped about their new formula, so no one knows quite how to improve it. Except for me, of course.
Blowing the lid off

A few days ago John Chow ran a contest about Entrecard. To enter to win his credits, you had to write a post about the contest, and link it.  About 50 people entered the contest. Entrecard’s traffic didn’t increase noticeably, in fact we did exactly the same amount of traffic the day before. But the Alexa spike almost went off the chart.

Full article: http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=309