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amybiddle · #3 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007, 04:30 PM

Hi myfirstwebsite - and everyone else (look at all the people! wow!)

What Lisa is saying is correct - SBI sites do not rely on what most people refer to as search engine optimization (SEO). The tools and the system offer so much more than that.

SEO relys on making the search engines happy to bring traffic and to rank highly. Like a fickle lover, the search engines change their ideas of what brings happiness from time to time - they change their algorithms. When that happens, people who were using the system of "x# of keywords per page" (or other number-based formulas), or "black hat" or "white hat" (tricks or other inducements for traffic) methods - those people start losing.

Last year (and it's going to happen again soon) Google made a major change in their algorithm. Sites were ranked lower overnight. Some sites (not just pages - entire sites) were no longer indexed (meaning that search engines were no longer providing those sites as search results - even if the sites were listed highly before the change).

I watched on the forums at SBI as this happened. SBI sites were impacted as well. No one was exempt.

Know what happened next?

A lot of the SBI sites were stronger than ever.

We were ranked higher (my site went up a whole Google PR without ANY effort on my part - at least effort put forth during this time. I didn't create any new pages for a few months around this time.)

Ok- so what does all this have to do with Alexa?

In a sense, Alexa is a search engine (of sorts). It's a very specific engine used for judging value to humans. I don't know this for certain, but I'd hazard a guess that there aren't very many Alexa sites with good (low 6-figure or less) rankings that are spammy. Most good Alexa rankings are on sites that offer good, high value content to readers.

That's the secret sauce!

Additionally, Alexa does its ranking based on who uses its toolbar. It's like having a Neilsen tv rating box installed on a site - only there are a bizillion of them, not just a few tens of thousands.

My Alexa ranking goes up and down- just like individual page rankings at my site. This is natural. My visitor numbers fluctuate, so these other numbers do as well.

I've thought for a long time about these numbers in terms of the stock market. My site's value is improving over time (as I add content) - just as any publicly traded company's value should (let's not get into a huge debate on this point - I realize some companies don't add value, they just abuse stock holders). Separate from my site's value is the perceived value assigned by my stockholders - people who visit my site. Those numbers will go up and down independently of what my site is doing. I've actually seen this happen in relation to day of the week, time of day, season changes, holiday times... etc. Stock markets have cycles - so do web site rankings and visitor numbers.

Ok- again - a too-long answer here. Wrapping up:

I guess my "short" (as if I could do that!) answer is - think independently of Google, Yahoo, Live, Alexa and other ranking tools. They are fun to track when you're up - crazy-making when you're down.

If you'll concentrate on taking the actions that you can control (SBI calls this CTPM for Content, Traffic, PreSelling, Monetization - in that order) you can be assured that, over time and through all cycles, you'll create a site that "works".

You'll be the long-term investing Warren Buffet of ecommerce!