Alexa Confirms: Why Alexa Ranks Have Been Decreased? [Of Facebook & Others]

You may be hearing the news in social media and on some websites too, that many blogs' and sites' Alexa Rank have been decreased (literally, according to numbers, they are increased). Since April, bloggers and website managers are experiencing this reduction in their Alexa Rankings. Even, the giant Facebook, a social networking site [you know], has also got a decrease in its Alexa ranking. Before April, Facebook was at #2, and now, it has been slipped to #3 and on #2, it is YouTube. So, what do think is the reason behind it? Has Alexa updated its algorithm? Has Alexa updated its toolbar? Or added any other add-on in their Database? What suddenly happened in these three months?

Well, it was not only the Facebook who has got this shock. Many other webmasters, blog owners (of WordPress & Blogger both) have reported this, and all are sad about this happening and asking, why this happened.

Note: This change has not drastically affected sites that have their Alexa Rank 100,000+.

Alexa Rank Of Facebook.com Decreased From #2 to #1

Decreasing your Alexa Rank is a tedious job for Bloggers especially. They hunt for traffic, either from the search engines or social media and when disastrous updates like this one happen, they get almost disappointed. Most of them, not all of them.

Here are some images of some blogs who have got a shock from Alexa in these three months:

Why This Happened?

By reading the above text, you must be wondering why this happened. Why the ranks of sites like Facebook and others (that of images) decreased. In the whole internet, many are thinking about this thing, and many are trying to find out why this happened.

So, after seeing so much people finding the solution or the reason behind this unfortunate occurrence and reduction is ranks, I contacted Alexa Team directly about why this happened, and their reply was seriously, satisfying. Yeah, satisfying because they were kind enough to give me a straightforward answer.

Three days ago, I was just surfing the net and was logged into my social account, and suddenly, my eyes caught one of the posts by MBT's owner which was shocking to me. It was giving the hint that something went wrong, and MBT's Alexa rank went down. After reading comments on that post, I got stunned because I got to know that almost everyone has got this shock and their Alexa Ranking has been reduced to at least 7000+.

So, this forced me to ponder over it and then I tried to research about what the matter was. At last, I got it successfully, in fact, from Alexa itself (as said in above para).

I contacted Alexa about this ruinous thing and asked if they have updated anything is their algorithm or having any algorithm's roll out. The answer from them was totally contrasting to me:

@BloggerGuider Nope, no changes to the algorithm. We did have a panel change: https://t.co/9BqPX9PsHR (most ranks are based on panel data)

— Alexa Internet (@AlexaInternet) May 12, 2016

But that was enough for me. I searched for this panel change and got lots of information that I am going to tell you...in this post, absolutely.

What Is 'Alexa Global Traffic Panel'? Why They Changed It?

As you can read in the tweet above by @AlexaTeam, there was a "panel" change. This seems confusing. Right? What do they mean by a "panel change"? It clearly is- They have increased their Global Traffic Panel. So what the hell is this?

Alexa’s traffic data is based on a global panel of people which is a sample of all internet users. The panel consists of millions of people using toolbars and browser add-ons created by over 25,000 different publishers, including Alexa and Amazon. - Alexa Team

Source: Alexa Support 

I think it is now clear to you that what this traffic panel means. It is simply the data from the Alexa Toolbar Internet users. So, the more they'll increase it, the more the estimated rank will Alexa be able to show.

The bigger the sample, the better the estimate.

That's why they increased it. As you know, Alexa has been trusted by many professionals and is one of the few things you need to make better about your blogs and websites. If your Alexa Rank is continuously increasing, then you may think of some interview requests, and then tons of advertisers would like to buy a space of your blog.

In the recent days, people had started to lose their trust from Alexa Ranking because these rankings were not enough nice estimates. The estimates that Alexa was showing were not even very rough estimates and by doing this increase in the traffic panel, they'll be able to provide better estimates and will try to regain the trust, they lost.

How Am I Confirm About This?

So, you must be thinking that how I am confident about this thing. There can be some other reason also? Then, buddy, go to your site's Alexa Rank page, and if you are one of the ones who have been affected, you will notice that the process of reduction in your Alexa Rank had started from the month of April, and this was the same month when Alexa had increased their Global Traffic Panel.

When we asked one more question about the decrease of Alexa Rank of Facebook:

@AlexaInternet Thanks. By the way, Facebook lost its position from #2 to #3. Can this be an impact of that panel change?

— Blogger Guider (@BloggerGuider) May 12, 2016

Then they replied:

@BloggerGuider Entirely possible, yes. You'll notice that the rank change for Facebook happened right around the panel change date.

— Alexa Internet (@AlexaInternet) May 12, 2016

Facebook's Ranking Decrease In The Month Of April, the same month when Alexa had a change in their Global Traffic Panel Change.

How Increase In Global Traffic Panel Is Related With Reduction Of The Alexa Rank?

Let's take the example of YouTube and Facebook. As you can see, YouTube has now the #2 position in Alexa and Facebook has #3. When we are noticing that Facebook has lost its rank, then at the same time, we should not forget that YouTube has "gained" better rank. Alexa has clearly stated that, by increasing their Global Traffic Panel, they would be able to estimate ranking with more accuracy. So, maybe, according to their improved panel, YouTube is more popular than Facebook. Probably, before this change in their panel, Alexa didn't estimated nicely about the traffic of Facebook & YouTube but now, with improved data, they're able to show that which site is more popular and have more traffic.

And, apart this, we cannot ignore the fact that YouTube was blocked in Pakistan and before few months, the ban was picked. So, there would be, of course, an increase in the traffic of YouTube.

How To, Now, Increase Your Alexa Ranking?

Am... now it's aged question. I would suggest you old ways to increase your Alexa Rank, like using Alexa Toolbar, adding Alexa Widget in your blog and so on.

Adding Alexa Widget is a more practical option if you ask me about my experience. Many professional bloggers, too, says that after adding Alexa Widget, their Alexa rank increased. For example:

How To Boost Your Alexa Ranking In One Easy Step

Or, for more ways, you can see the following post that was published in past on Blogger Guider:

Increase Your Alexa Rank Without Doing Anything For Alexa

Final Words

Well, I would like to appreciate Alexa about what they are doing, just to provide better estimates to the public and to the people who trust on Alexa Ranking. Now, if you enjoyed this article and if you think that it deserves a share, then kindly it on your social media profile. I don't want anything else. :)

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