Alexa Links: How To Get More Of Them

It's never enough.....

Statistics and social proof. Online business dwells on these numbers – its all a numbers game. I used to be denying this a few months back. But now I agree – Numbers matter a lot.

So among all the statistics we pay attention to, Alexa links or Alexa site links is the one which is not much talked about.

The  most popular ones are Google pagerank, Alexa rank (the traffic rank), Mozrank and the social numbers. But there’s something called Alexa links – a statistic that advertisers, clients and big companies are giving much weight to.

First of all, we’re talking about Alexa links, not the Alexa rank.

Alexa links is just a measure of the number of sites linking to your website or blog. If there are 100 sites that link to your site (that is, have a link pointing to your home page or any other page) then your Alexa links score will be 100.

How is it different from Google or Yahoo backlinks? I hear you asking.

You can always find the number of backlinks to your site from any other website using Google, Yahoo or other popular search engine’s webmaster tools.

Again you can also type in “links: www.yoursite.com” in any search engine to find the number of backlinks to your site as counted by that search engine.

This number will not be the same with all the search engines since their indexing frequency and other factors are different.

Anyway, there is a major difference between the number of backlinks as shown by other search engines and Alexa links -

Alexa links only count unique domain backlinks. Allow me to explain.

Let’s say that you visit my blog regularly and leave comments. And also lets say that you are a regular guest poster here. Assume that you’ve so far generated 100 links pointing to your site (either your home page or any other page in your site, that doesn’t matter) from www.probloggingsuccess.com.

Now according to Google, Yahoo or Bing this is equal to 100 links (backlinks or imcoming links or site links), if they are all indexed.

However, according to Alexa, this is just one link. Ya you heard me right, just ONE link. Feeling disappointed already?

Well, there’s a point. Monitoring your Alexa links is really a healthy feedback on your link building efforts.

Alexa links is a count that does not represent all the links from all the domains, but only the number of domains that link to you.

So according to Alexa, no matter if you have 100 links or 5 links from my blog to yours, they’ll all be counted as 1.

Although it is disappointing and annoying to know this fact, it is a very healthy thing. Alexa links tell you how many new sites start talking about you instead of the same site linking to you again and again.

This makes perfect sense to me because ultimately you do not want to have the same bunch of sites linking to yours – you need more and more sites linking to yours which means you’re expanding or becoming popular.

Google and Yahoo tell you how many links point to your site, if you check them in your Google/Yahoo webmaster tools. However, Google and Yahoo consider multiple links from the same site (domain) as unique.

This implies that you have to come out of your circle.

• Are you the one reading the same blogs again and again?
• Do you comment only on a handful of blogs?
• Do you guest post only on a handful of blogs?

If your answer is YES to these questions, then you’re missing out a lot. Your link building efforts are not that efficient.

Monitoring Alexa links will help you come out of the circle.

If you are the one who have subscribed to a handful of blog’s feeds and visit the Google reader regularly and comment of those blogs, you won’t succeed in increasing your Alexa links (although you will be increasing your number of backlinks or incoming links).

If you are the one who guest posts on the same blogs around then you won’t increase your Alexa links either.

If you are the one who submits articles to the same article directories again and again, you won’t increase your Alexa links.

So… how to get more of Alexa links? Simple. Find new blogs and join.

Make it a point to find at least one new blog every week. Write guest post for at least one new blog in a month (the week/month limitation is up to you. You can change it according to your preference).

Do it regularly. You will find your Alexa links to increase in a steady and a healthy manner.

Now, while I completely insist that you should have tons of links according to Google and Yahoo (that is, go comment on sites that you regularly visit), I also do insist that you should go find new blogs to comment/guest post on.

This is not just to increase Alexa links, but in general is a healthy practice.

How do I find new blogs? I hear you asking, but that’s the story for another blog post.

Before you leave could you please share this post if you liked it? Please also leave your thoughts in the comments I’d appreciate a conversation here.

Update: Here’s a follow-up post – Alexa Links: 2 Ways To Easily Increase Yours

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Article by JaneSheeba

+Jane is the founder of Problogging Success. She is an expert blogger, consultant, freelance writer and blog designer. Don't forget to get your hands on two FREE Ebooks she offers.

Jane has written 262 awesome posts for Problogging Success.