Alexa Test: Redirecting jpegs does NOT work.

The Skyrocket Alexa Test Version II results are in: you cannot increase your Alexa rank by getting friends to place redirected beacon images to your blog on their blog.

Alexa daily traffic graphs showing the effect of using Alexa redirected image beacons are now available. If the proposed image beacon exploit worked, we would have seen the Alexa traffic ranks of LordMatt.co.uk, thedietdiary.com, money.bigbucksblogger.com and rankexploits.com all approach the same high value after August 15, marked as time 4 in the image below.

This didn’t happen as you can see:

Despite redirected image becons displayed onall four sites, the Alexa ranks of all are moving independently. In particular, the rank of the zero traffic ‘rankexploits.com’ is in the basement- where it should be. Sure, the rank of LordMatt.co.uk and money.bigbucksblogger.com look similar, but that turns out to be a coincidence. (It also illustrates why these sorts of tests require using several blogs!)

Anyway, the exploit doesn’t work. Because the results are posted publicly, I suspect no-one will need to feel the need to waste their time trying it for themselves.

History discussing why this exploit was tested and what happened.

I tested this an Alexa exploit theory because it has been described publicly and I think these sorts of things should be tested publicly. By testing out in the open, publishers, advertisers and investors can all benefit from the information. When tests are done secretly (as we know they commonly are) it becomes easy for “in the know publishers” to use the exploit to boost their Alexa ranks and negotiate for better payouts from services like Pay Per Post, Review Me etc.

So, I prefer to test and announce results publicly. This detailed history is provided to permit those (hopefully few) who are interested in details see how the Alexa ranks evolved over time.

1. On 8/6/2007 Lord Matt described his theory about how to juice Alexa ranks; he requests participants for a simple experiment that affects only his blog. I install his image redirect on my blog. We both did this openly.

As you can see, soon after 8/6, Matt’s Alexa jumped. This could have been either due to an increase in visits by those with Alexa toolbars or due to the redirect. It is impossible to tell with only one blog. However, it looked interesting, and seemed worth testing further.

2 & 3 On 8/9/2007 I requested participants in my first Alexa experiment which would affect results for 10 blogs. I got a few volunteers and between 8/10 and 8/11 I added a few blog beacons to the footer. By 3pm 8/11, I yanked all beacons because Karen of PayPerPost objected to Posties doing this sort of thing. (I was a postie. When I read Karen’s objection I agreed with Karen and begin trying to figure out how to resign and decided to make sure no posties would be involved.)

The period during which beacons ran is shown between lines 2 and 3 marked on the image. As you can see, this is too short a period to determine anything.

I wished to continue the experiment, and requested information on how to resign as a Postie. On 8/13, Monday morning, PPP responded to my ticket, and I was no longer a Postie.

4. On 8/15/2007 I re-initiate the Skyrocket Alexa Experiment including four domains with blogs and on zero traffic domain which would provide unambiguous results.

As you can see, after 8/15/2007 both LordMatt and I saw declining Alexa ranks which moved almost in tandem. Had our two blogs been the only ones involved, this would have suggested the redirects work. After all, we’d both loaded images on our blogs! This is supposed to make our Alexa ranks match each other.

(Of course, the hope is that our Alexa’s would increase. But if our real traffic h appened to fall at the time, they might decrease. In fact, my real traffic did fall for a few days. I had been stumbled earlier in the week, and the effects of the stumble wore off!)

Luckily, I also loaded images from thedietdiary.com and rankexploits.com.

If the redirects worked, their Alexa ranks should match bigbucksblogger.com’s and lordmatt.co.uk’s Alexa ranks. All four lines would travel together.

They don’t; the ranks of the other two blogs are entirely unaffected. (RankExploits.com shows zero reach which is correct. Thedietdiary.com is lower than bigbucksblogger.com; that’s hilariously incorrect! )

Conclusion

You can’t use redirected image beacons to boost the Alexa rank of blogs.

Tags:Alexa Rankings

Related Posts:

• Alexa Game: You Visit, I Visit
• Alexa Network: Cooperative Exploit.
• Alexa Experiment and Paid Posting
• Sky Rocket Alexa: Take Two!

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