Did you install Alexa’s code on your website? If not, why not?

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I was working with one of my clients recently who runs an active and growing forum. We were discussing why Alexa code might be important for website owners who would like to monetize their website(s).

What is Alexa?

Alexa is one of the few tools that is available as an external measure of a site’s traffic. The traffic statistics are collected, analysed, and presented on the main website for each website. The statistics are broken down in three ways: ranking, reach, and pages per view. Rankings are subdivided into regional and overall rankings. Reach defines a percentage of users who visit that website, and Pages Per View is quite obvious: a metric that shows how many pages (or how long?) a visitor stays on your site.

You can see the code about this blog on the right sidebar. When you click on the graphic, you’ll be taken to the Alexa page where you can see the metrics rated over the last 24 hours (usually none), the past week, and the past 3 months. You can only have 24 hours ratings if your blog is averaging 100K or less in the rank.

Why Alexa?

Actually, Alexa didn’t use to be that important, but with few metrics available to measure site ‘value’, Alexa has found something of a rebirth in interest, esp. among bloggers. Other metrics generally include Google’s PageRank, and Feedburner Subscriptions. But neither of these actually track traffic to your website. Here is Alexa’s own description:

The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis.

The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)

Thanks, DoshDosh, for the quotation. He has some tips (some useful, some not) on how to improve your Alexa ranking. So, as a measure of traffic, this website can be very helpful in estimating a website’s audience.

Why install Alexa’s code?

In fact, he was a little unsure of the value of having Alexa traffic code on your websites, so here’s what I wrote to him. I thought that my other readers who don’t have an Alexa installed might be interested to read about it:

I noted that you removed the Alexa code again. I’d strongly advise that you replace the code. Why? Because for several important ad-related systems that you may want to use all rely (at least partly) on the value that your Alexa rank has:

Text Link Ads use this metric, and
LinkWorth (you’re now using them) may use this information to value the website, too.
ReviewME,
SponsoredReviews,
Payperpost, etc.. all use Alexa rankings either directly or indirectly.

In fact, although the rankings aren’t particularly accurate, many possible link purchasers will refer to the Alexa rankings as an external way to rate the amount and quality of your traffic (as they can’t access your Analytics information).

I just found the Alexa rankings sited in the stats for each blog/website IN Linkworth. I’ve attached an image for you to look at see what I mean. Even if you don’t wish to use the rankings to make money now, you may find that having a poor ranking (ie below 100K) may hinder you later on.

 alexa sample in Linkworth

In fact, I noted that your Alexa ranking had increased to over 444K in just the few days that I installed it. It would continue to increase as people visit the website, load the pages and so on.

Installation: It’s a SNAP

Many people install Alexa’s toolbar on their system as a means to record their hits, but in fact, for most bloggers, adding the following code to their blog will allow Alexa to accurately track all the traffic to your blog.

<SCRIPT type=’text/javascript’ language=’JavaScript’ src=’http://xslt.alexa.com/site_stats/js/t/a?url=www.yourwebsite.com’></SCRIPT>

The box is a little ugly and inappropriate for some sites, but you can find a simple text link at the website. For all the codes, just visit Alexa. Then you’ll find that installing the code is relatively straightforward.

Just enter the URL of your website in the Widget. Then copy and paste the code into a spot in your sidebar. I’d suggest putting it at the bottom of your sidebar, so it’s less visible.

What are your experiences using Alexa? Do you think that Alexa can be successfully gamed? I’m not sure, but since installing the code, and trying to attract visitors, my Alexa ranking shot up from over 2,500,000 to approximately 150,000. I’d like to get the ranking under 100K again. So here’s hoping.

TNX.net – links marketplace and it’s buzzing for business!

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With so many options available for buying and selling text links, and Google looking to get into the market itself, it is the rare and brave website that enters the market! Let’s welcome TNX… (click on the picture to see the front page).

mainpage

I’ve been asked to review a new text link service that is called TNX. In fact, TNX is an interesting new take on the idea of buying and selling Text Links. We’re quite familiar with Text Link Ads and Linkworth, and their methods of doing business. But TNX adds a couple of twists that make it more interesting.

 

Best of Both Worlds

The TNX website incorporates both publishers and advertisers into the same scheme, but it borrows some of the ideas from traffic websites, like BlogMad and BlogExplosion by incorporating several things: credits (you are provided bonus points when you initially sign up, you can earn credits, and you can buy credits) and campaigns (you can create, target, assign credits and monitor them).

As with all credits, there is a purchase price, which can vary rather than a fixed price. I’m not quite sure why and how the price will vary, but it is currently set at $1.14 per 1,000 credits. Moreover, intriguingly, there is an option to sell credits to others or back to the system. I’m not sure again why this is useful, but it looks like credits could be a mini-currency within the system. It is possible that it could be a form of payment.

Opportunities for DOSH!

It is clear though, that the site is intended to create opportunities to trade links or points. Payments are to be handled through Paypal as usual. There are additional opportunities to earn money from building your own affiliate network through TNX. In fact, their website says:

When you refer webmasters to TNX.net, you get 13.3% (as long as your account is active) of all TNX-points that are generated by their websites. In addition, you will receive 5% of all payments, made by referred advertiser.

Referrals right now are attracting additional credits of upto 7,000 credit points, and an additional 5,000 credits for each site that is approved. So it’s a good time to join up!

 

Installing the CODE

I have already installed the code on one of my blogs. Initially, I was surprised how long the PHP code piece I was expected to include – it’s long! But, that presented no problems. In fact, for Wordpress users, you will need to use a plugin like Wigdetize Anything or EXEC-PHP to put the code directly in your blog. The instructions provided with the code that TNX are clear and easy to follow.

codefortnx

In fact, I was able to get the code installed and working within a few minutes of installing Widgetize Anything (but I had to remove the <php… and ?> tags at the beginning and the end). After struggling with Linkworth’s code for ages, I hadn’t much hope but it worked a treat. I, however, would recommend that TNX develop a plugin for bloggers to use with Wordpress. (Oddly, I found that the code might be includable in MANY PHP driven websites, but it might be better for tech-savier to try out the installs themselves.)

Once my sites are approved, I’ll write another post on how to install the code, how to create your first campaign, and what the results are. I’m looking forward to doing a followup on this website. It has a lot of potential that is just being hinted at right now.

Sponsored by TNX.net.

Home Contents Insurance: Is yours enough?

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coopinsurance

It’s rare to see an organisation that really walks the talk by doing what it promises. I’d like to think that every bank and insurance could follow in the Cooperative Financial Insurance Group’s footsteps. While they are naturally a good business, doing good (=’ethical’) business is naturally beneficial for their customers, their shareholders and the world.

It’s vital to have good house insurance in emergencies. Every houseowner and renter should make appropriate arrangements for their personal effects and the building. The cost of replacing your home contents and/or repairing your house can quickly add up. You will likely find out soon enought that your emergency savings just won’t be enought to cope with all the aftereffects of flood damage, or smoke damage, or worse.

How do you prepare for purchasing home insurance? Well, one of the things that few people bother to do is to do the home equivalent of an inventory check. In other words, have you added up the value of your home possessions if you had to replace them at their original price or as new?

Well, an inventory check is a simple room by room assessment of the contents, their value and a photograph of the items. It’s better to do the inventory check on a computer, and use digital photographs of the items in the document you create. This document can then be printed out as many times as you need, saved to an online or secure location, and accessed when needed.

The list can be surprisingly long and the items you end up including will surprise you, such as teatowels, socks, blank CDs for your PC, … More than likely, you will be shocked at how much you would actually have to spend to replace ALL your contents. That only goes for the replaceable items. Some items may need to be insured separately, such as jewelry, art, expensive clothes or new equipment (remember that LCD TV?)… Additionally, you will need to examine if you need additional cover for flood or earthquake risk.

Then you need to decide whether you will choose a ‘replacement cost policy’ or a ‘actual cash value’ policy. The former policy will likely be more expensive than the latter one, but the latter will include normal wear and tear or depreciation (loss of value due to age). Do consider the effects of inflation on your policy cover, and make sure that, as prices rise, your cover rises, too, to cover the extra expenses.

Did you buy insurance for home contents? What did it cost? Did you have any problems or good experiences? Share with us!