What Are Alexa Scores?

I keep reading about Alexa scores and how important they are especially if you are monetizing your blog.  According to what I've read, you want a number below 100,000 so you can attract sponsors.

Sounds good but what is an Alexa score?  Why is it so important if you want to monetize your blog?  I had no idea but with a bit of research, I discovered more about this tool.

First off, Alexa is owned by Amazon and the service  charges a monthly fee from $9.99 for the basic package to $149.99 for the all inclusive package.

Alexa analyzes your traffic over a 3 month period to determine rankings.  The lower the number you score, the higher the amount of traffic you are receiving but there is a catch.  In order for visitors to be counted both you and they have to have the appropriate toolbar on your computer.

The company admits that all scores are rough estimates but those below 100,000 are less rough estimates than those above that threshold.  The closer to a ranking of one you get, the more accurate it is going to be.

From a statistical point of view, its sample size is determined by the number of people who have the toolbar.  It does not search the whole web to check for other data.  From what I've read, Alexa scores are not considered that important for much other than looking at trends.  In fact, most everything I've read states you should not sweat your Alexa numbers because they don't mean that much in the over all scheme of things.


Yes, I know its shocking but I cannot find any real need to have a low Alexa number because there does not seem to be any real reason except you might be able to charge more for ads. I looked at it but it does not seem to give me any real advantage so I don't plan to worry about it.

If there is a great reason for having a low Alexa score, please let me know?  I just couldn't find a good reason in all my research.  In fact, most of the research indicated its not worth paying much attention to those numbers since only people with the proper add-on can do it.