Firefox users! Please download Alexa plug-in!

[lordsmurf]

Simply put, this tells Alexa which sites are most important to Internet viewers, meaning sites can get ranked higher in the Alexa scores, and the sites get paid more in ad dollars. Alexa is not there to track you as a person, not spyware, but rather a body of information on which sites are visited online. It's nothing more than circulation and demographic data. (For example, I have sites with less-than-perfect Alexa Ratings -- it could be higher if my viewers simply had an Alexa report tool installed! And thus higher income from the sites.)

Alexa is the Internet company you've probably never heard of. But they are one of the leading references that can determine what sort of ad dollars you get paid online. While Alexa is a flawed system inherently (most Alexa ratings are ONLY from IE users with the Alexa Toolbar), it's like eBay and Paypal -- we really have no choice but to deal with the devil.

It's a harmless plug-in, shows you the Alexa ranking of sites in the browser footer (along with other plug-ins). As a site owner myself who deals with advertisers, I urge you do help out the Internet site owners out there. You can still block ads (Firefox AdBlock), but go ahead and at least add Alexa. It's the least you can do to support sites you visit. Especially if you end up visiting one of mine!

This helpful-to-websites plug-in is at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5362

Pretty please with sugar on top?

[NotSoEasy]

Simply put, Alexa is like the Nielsen Company.You know, as in Nielsen Ratings.
Be aware though that this toolbar can effect browsing speed.As with any FF plugin, be aware that some use more resource than others.So far I have found Ad Block Plus to be the largest consumption but this toolbar can slow things down.Be aware also that some spyware checkers might deem this toolbar as spyware and will remove it if your not carefull.

Google also uses Alexa for indexing and rank so really as the site changes ( which it is constantly doing ) and the Google-bots are surfing the site, it's doing pretty much the same as however many install the toolbar and surf here.The toolbar will just do it a little more quickly.

[lordsmurf]

Yes, exactly, it's THE ratings system used right now. Even more than Google's PageRank system. It's a system that measures traffic by a formula of sampling analysis, based off numbers it gets from it's toolbar users (and now plug-in users).

I'm NOT suggesting the Toolbar. Just the "Sparky" plug-in for Firefox. I would consider the Toolbar to be "crapware" (spyware, nuisanceware, whatever). Just the Firefox plug-in. I don't like browser toolbars at all, be it Google, AOL, etc. Nuisances, all of them.

You can also integrate the Alexa search into the Firefox search bar. It comes pre-packaged with Google and Dictionary, but you can add many more yourself (IMDB, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, etc). I've done this.

It's not affected pageloads times a bit that I've noticed. I think Greasemonkey is the most gluttonous one I've got installed. AdBlock's not as bad as that one. But they're all so useful, the extra few milliseconds are worth it.

[FulciLives]

I installed it but only because the little blue guy says so ... anyone else and I would have said "F you" but hey whatever.

BTW when you install it you are asked to re-start FIREFOX and when you do you get a page that pops up asking for some demographic data but it appeared to me that if you did all that ... that you end up with the toolbar ... looked like a trick to make you install the toolbar.

I didn't do any of that but I do have the plug-in going I guess because I have a "thing" in the lower right hand "bar" of FIREFOX with a rating number etc.

Also I'm running Linux and it worked a treat ... was afraid that was going to be an issue but it wasn't ... all I did was follow the LordSmurf link.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[thecoalman]

Just my .02 but the data collected from that is far from reliable. I've watched huge swings in my own rankings. Sometimes the exact opposite of what the real stats say. These swings are not off by a little but quite a bit. Too small a distribution in too narrow of demographic to even be considered somewhat accurate.

[lordsmurf]

Like I said, deal with the devil. We all hate it, but advertisers still rely on it.

The demographic collection form doesn't seem to work. But the Alexa data seems to be flowing fine. It's interesting to see which sites have which ranks. Yahoo was #1 yesterday.