Metric that Trumps Alexa Ranking and PageRank

Congratulations on the Alexa rating, and on Holly sharing her more important statistic. Even though you haven't quite managed to kick the habit is no reason to quit trying. You put your mind to it and I'm sure you will be able to do it.

whoah!!! that's one mean feat. breaking the 100k alexa is not easy. Though upon checking, it's now at 160k. But even at that level, that's still quite a feat. the compete.com metric shows that your traffic is also steadily increasing and most of your visitors are coming from NA.

Ang galing! And congrats for quitting the habit. Keep blogging!

Congrats jan on your best Alexa rating day! wow!!! ang galing!!! and most of your comments are from foreyners, hehe. tumatagaktak ang mga english...

Flash in the pan lang po yan. Katulad ngayon I'm mostly in my FB farm
nagtatanim ng patatas at nagmamakaawa sa mga kapitbahay na regaluhan ako ng
baka at manok. Ahehehe.... Oo nga po, mahirap din to blog in English. Di
ka pa nakakapagmumog sa umaga kailangan nang makipagtalaktakan in English.
Nakakapagod sa panga. LOL

Congrats on your best Alexa rating day! I remember the first day I cracked the top 100,000 I was so excited. Since then, I've noticed it has been easier to keep people coming back.

You are right that blogging is a marathon. One good day doesn't make your blog, but it also doesn't mean it's the only good day you're going to have.

You've been putting out a lot of great content. I'm sure soon you'll be breaking the top 100,000 daily. The longer you stick at it, the better.

Best of luck with kicking the smoking habit. It is one of the hardest things in to do. I know a lot of people who ease their way off of them, but they always seem to start back up. I think cold turkey is the way to go. Even though you'll be miserable for 3-7 days, when you're done you'll it will have been worth it. It shows that you REALLY want to quit.. not just forcing yourself to cut back.

The challenge now is to keep the momentum going. Keeping what works and thinking ways to improve on weaknesses. Lots of stuff still need to be done... Thanks for the encouragement, Blake. :)

Congrats Jan! Me too, I'm happy as my alexa rank keeps on increasing these past few weeks. Most are coming from search engines with some forums and direct traffic as well. :)

The challenging part is to pass over the 100k alexa rank. You are running ahead towards that rank. I hope I can also achieve it. :)

It's good to have specific goals like reaching the 100k mark - makes you on your toes and creative in thinking of ways to improve the blog. You know, tactics and strategies. :)

Ya, the Alexa thingy. I am a little allergic to it.

This is I think because I am more than happy enough to see Wordpress blogstat and more than happy enough to congratulate those who made to the top.

Congrats to your milestone Jan.

As a defense mechanism coping up the heartache of not making to the top, I should embrace wholeheartedly the most important of all...

This is the yardstick that proves to be more life-changing than Alexa Ranking and Google Page Rank:

* Your Quit Date is: Friday, December 08,, 2006 at 2:00 PM
* Time Smoke-Free: 1047 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes and 26 seconds
* Cigarettes NOT Smoked: 17,810
* Lifetime Saved: 4 months, 16 days, 1 hour
* Money Saved: $3,785.90

Thank you!

I've infected some of my friends with my fascination with Alexa ranking. I know it's not a very accurate gauge of web search traffic, but in the absence of a more reliable traffic monitoring site it will have to do.

I'm a bit hesitant to trumpet it as it might be construed as bragging. Well, in a way yeah, it's a little of that. It's just so hard when the blog doesn't even pay for coffee and the cost of electricity that little good news about web traffic always proves to make up for all the aggravation we put up with just so we can blog. :)

The days since your last smoke. Money saved. Approximate time added to your life. These are the more important statistics. I'm glad you liked that. :)

Congratulation Jan! That's one great achievement. ^^ Each and every blogger should celebrate his/her milestone with the readers. I wish you much greater success ahead.

I owed my thanks to some really cool blogger friends who're there encouraging me along the way. I treasure them so much for being my readers / friends. If not because of them, I may not be where I am today and still persevering. It'll be a long way to go for me to reach my next milestone, but thanks for what you shared, hopefully we can support one another in various social network to step further ahead. Best wishes!


@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker

Thanks a lot. It's heartening to note improvement - even slow, incremental improvements. Takes away the long hours I keep in blogging. I feel somewhat rewarded for the effort... Of course, I'd be glad to network with you closely. Just give me a shout-out anytime you need help with something. :)

Hello Jan, I can see that blogging is a passion for you, as our good friend Roy said : "You breathe blog." And it paid off with such an extraordinary feat...WOW! I've never gone below the 150,000 mark. Congratulations, now you'll have to match Holly's success in quitting smoking. You can do it!

Congrats too Holly.

You're a tough taskmaster, Jen. From one milestone into the next one. Holly's example is much more important. I will, Jen. I will. :)

Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it so many times. My favorite author said that. :)

Congratulations on the Alexa Jan!

That's funny, friend... Ah well, it's so tiring I wish just to stare into nothing. Or perhaps sleep the whole day. Goodness gracious, this is a lot tougher than a day job. :)

Amazing! Congratulations to you! That is also my goal for my blog, to break the 100k mark. More power and blessings to you!

It's hard. I've been languishing at the 213k mark for the last two weeks. Then the line in front of me moved a bit forward. ahahaha. Thank goodness for that... Good luck on your efforts, Rocky! It's a bit fun, don't you think so? :)

Thanks for your encouraging reply Jan. I've made a print of your blog as a thanks giving!

Jan, I saw the post, shared it on Twitter, did the happy dance and then tripped along into my day. So, I'm back hours later because in all my excitement I kind of forgot to tell you Congratulations! I say celebrate every milestone, and achievement. It took hard work and discipline to get you there. Once you get the win in one area you apply it to another. You may have started blogging to quit smoking (and you will get there) but you learned that you do have discipline and fortitude. Yay! I look forward to celebrating the next milestone with you, but this time I'll share before I dance. :-)

"Once you get the win in one area you apply it to another."

There's a good idea. Thanks a lot, Karen. And for sharing it in Twitter, too! :)

Congrats on your ranking Jan, but Alexa isn't that important to your traffic.

I agree, Rose. It's just that I do look at it at least once a day, note it down in my little excel sheet to mark my progress. It can grow old real fast, what with so many more important blogging issues a blogger has to contend with on a daily basis.

Thanks for the reminder. :)

Congrats to both Holly and you Jan. For Holly, being able to find the will to quit smoking is a great effort and the milestone of almost three years smoke free even better than any Alexa or PR I can think of. As for me, I unfortunately smoke, but really have a hard time quiting, because simply put, I like to smoke. I have to have a bad habit, I guess:)

Obviously this does not put aside the milestones that all bloggers are constantly looking for, and your Alexa improvement is no exception. It is awesome that you broken the 100K mark. Did you know that Alexa themselves say that their metrics is actually accurate when it hits this mark? As to maintaining it, I'm sure you will have no problems, considering you have a great "mastermind" group, lol.

I do like what Heather had to say: "If they have the power to make me feel good about myself, they can also have the opposite power." Very true indeed.

Someone said that he needed some bad habits to put some symmetry in his life. That still puzzles me, of course. Unless that's a weird way of saying, "I'm a cool guy with this list of virtues. Now pardon me while I foul up the air you breathe in my presence."

Yeah, I've read it too. Although I wish every browser has this built in so we'd have a more "accurate" reading.

Excellent post Jan, kinda puts things in their proper perspective. For me, my wife and son keep me grounded and remind me of that which are truly important. Still, a high Alexa ranking is great and I congratulate you!

The metrics I have become obsessed with are my weight and my calorie intake as these have a direct effect to other metrics that my doctor would like to monitor. Come to think of it, our bathroom scale is still under the mud left by Ondoy. Oh well, such is life. =)

Thanks, Jay... Health is very important, too. It's good to be reminded - thank God we've friends and loved ones to poke us every time we become forgetful of the more important things in life.

I'm so jealous, Jan. I haven't even broken the 1 million mark. I guess you're right, blogging is a marathon.

I need to put in more work.

That's one irritating thing about Alexa - you can easily lose your good standing if you're not consistent with your post frequency. It's as if it's telling us, "You're only as good as your last post." There are happy exceptions of course. But we're not Maki or Skellie yet. Perhaps when we've reached their level of excellence we can then start posting only when it pleases us.

For the common bloggers like us? Hard work! LOL. I already feel tired just thinking about it. :)

Ahhh, is that what it is?

wow! all the hard work paid off. congratulations, jan! by the way, stop smoking! i suggest you move here in davao to kick that habit off (at least, while you are in public places) because the police take our anti-smoking ordinance seriously. hehehe...

What's the penalty in Davao? Hard labor? Stiff fines? Joking... Hey, the coffee beans you sent me, remember? Smells good, tastes good. Thanks, my friend. We're still keeping the tableya untouched - still waiting for the right occasion. :)

Parang gusto ko yun ah...
Your Quit Date is: Friday, December 08,, 2006 at 2:00 PM
Time Smoke-Free: 1047 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes and 26 seconds
Cigarettes NOT Smoked: 17,810
Lifetime Saved: 4 months, 16 days, 1 hour
Money Saved: $3,785.90

Well I do place some counters/ranks but what matters to me were the one's who stays... and may constant blog buddies... it's all about fun baby! jijijijiji

You smoke, too? Well, well, well... Indeed, if it's all about fun your blog is a great example of that. :)

Very inspired post Jan - it's not a bad thing to track your Alexa, but dont let it control your blogging life - instead, control your own life and let it cascade to your blogging style. Voila!

Lol, but I'm not one to claim I have done this perfectly - yes I DO obsess over Alexa and even keep my own tracking on excel - but hey, that's just me. Lol.

I went from PR0 to PR3 in 3 months (since I went backtoblogging in Jan09) then it stayed there. I have no idea how I got PR3. And since it never moves anyway (at least for me) I've just ignored it. Lol.

And I don't smoke. Haha. I never liked the way they smell. woot...
But CONGRATS to Holly for kicking the habit. It isn't called an "addiction" for nothing right, so Kudos. :D

You don't say! Pssst... I have an excel sheet too of Alexa Ranking of my close friends and some jackass bloggers who think the world of themselves. Ahahaha. Yeehaw. And I thought I was weird. You are weird, too!

And just like you, I don't know how I got my PR3. I used to think it was because I was with Blogger. Now, I'm on self-hosted WP blog and Google gave it back to me. Maybe we're instinctively doing the right things that Google approve of? LOL

Aha. now you're tracking your metrics. it can be addictive, jan. I warn you. i no longer keep track of my alexa, pr and no. of subscribers. I quickly checked my alexa an hour ago and i was surprised i have a 50k something rank yesterday. I even seldom check my stats at google analystics. the stat i check now are the cents coming in my GA. just cents though. hehe.

Novz: My excuse is that I have to check out the before PG50 figures just so
I'd have some fairly good idea how much impact our group effort at promotion
on our blogs.
Well, let's see. I'd just put back Adsense in my blog. So you've company
now in watching the cents go by. Ahahahaha.

We're having fun here in our group, aren't we? That's a good metric in
itself.

*If you've suggestions, and this goes to everybody member in the group,
please feel free giving us your mind. Just shoot an email to the group and
we'd take it from there.

*On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Disqus <

Haha! Well i only keep a record on my own, so you're worse (weirder). lol.

Now I'm beginning to think everyone here who knows how to use excel is keeping tabs on his/her Alexa too. Fess up y'all. :p

Ahahahaha. You're not so bad yourself, Rey.

well... congratulations jan for hitting surpassing the 100k mark! you deserve it very well... and oh... yah... you better quit smoking... it makes the brain purple! :D

Was it a Whitney Houston song that goes, "One moment in time...?" It was just for a week, Yatot. But of course I'd be happy to maintain that momentum... Argh - a purple brain.

aaawww.. why one week only? you can do that permanently... unless of course you wanted to have a purple brain, do you? and these (very graphic... my warming...) —> http://z.hubpages.com/u/203067...

Okay, I just have to say it: That was gross. Effective, though. Have you ever seen the photos of the man who had his entire lower jaw and larynx removed due to cancer? He continued smoking through his trach tube until he died. This isn't it, but close enough: http://post.portlandmercury.co...

Argh... Besides, Charles said it makes your skin looks gross. Vanity is a good motivation, eh?

Congratulatons on you Alexa Ranking. I just noticed your site has a PageRank 3. Wow!

I may be off-topic here but I see you have Adsense ads now. Good luck on earning!

No improvement there, Richie. I got a PR3 in my blogspot blog. Google just gave back to me more of the same. Not that I'm complaining. LOL.

Is that a bad place to put it? I thought of putting it before the post body, but I usually have a picture or graphic there so I put it down here instead. Do you have any suggestion?

I have a similar blogging group full of fascinating new friends. ! ;-)

My family and online friends alike inspire me on a daily basis. I've already internalized a few people who keep me honest. It's of critical importance not to get full of oneself, as that is a sure path to alienating those you care about. Conversely, it is critical to not berate oneself or minimize one's accomplishments. I know these things, but yet am far from getting to a place where I will feel comfortable with success. I am a master of self-sabotage. Hopefully this will soon be a thing of the past. :)

As far as Alexa and rankings go, I am just like the rest of the world. I'd be thrilled to see them rocket. But I don't want to give them power over me. If they have the power to make me feel good about myself, they can also have the opposite power. I am working towards interacting with interesting people who share my interests and challenge me to be better than I am. THAT will be a measure of success in my book.

Great post, Jan!

"If they have the power to make me feel good about myself, they can also have the opposite power."

Well said. You're such an insightful friend. Your blogging group should congratulate itself just for the sheer luck of getting you on board.

That was so nice, thank you!

Wow that's awesome Jan! I used to monitor my statistics when I first started blogging like 4 years ago, but as the time goes by I somewhat ignored it and never cared about it. Instead, I focused more on my writing and designs.

When I was around 18, I smoked for like 2 months and quit when I realised that my skin wasn't looking that good. Nicotine strips vitamin C from your skin. I think my vanity saved me from becoming a real smoker.

You've logged in four years already? That's great, Charles. That only goes to show how much you have come to love writing and designing. Well, you've to humor a friend who's new at this. Rest assured I'd get over this soon. Lol.

Yeah, smoking is bad for the skin. I should know - I look at it everyday in the morning. :)

Very, very nice!

I'm just about to break 100k myself. My traffic is escalating very smoothly, which I like. No surprises. I do X, I get Y response. Beautiful!

Now, you have to hold it there!

That's the tough part - maintaining the momentum. But you're here. Your blog is resource rich with great WordPress tips, SEO, and writing tips. Just will have to keep doing what works and tweak stuff that needs shoring up.

Jan - Writing to Exhale was about quitting cigarettes - interesting! I hope you find a way to get off of those things - they're no good for you. To your questions:
1. I've never paid much attention to Alexa except when doing research on sites that compete with a client's.
2. I use PageRank mainly to quickly check the legitimacy of people who send link exchange requests and things like that. It's a decent benchmark, at least for now. This week I've been reading that Google is not paying much attention to PR these days.
3. My blogging inspirations are many - these people come to mind: Liz Strauss, Karen Swim, Joanna Young, Amy Palko, Jan Germonimo, Phil Gerbyshak, Rosa Say, Robert Hruzek, Fred Schlegel ... the list could go on for miles.

Yeah, it was. The blog evolved in time in its focus, but of course the desire to get rid of this nasty habit still nags at me every day... These are good metrics and they can be put to good use. But to be more people oriented can spell the difference too in achieving significant success in blogging. Nice list there. I see several who I have yet to connect with. Well, you know me - you recommend and I follow. :)

Thank you, Jan! That's me: Programmer's Muse and Bloggers' Jiminy Cricket! The coolest thing I can say about my quitting smoking is that THIS time, it wasn't hard. I remember being slightly more irritable than usual, but it just wasn't that hard.

The funniest thing, though: It took two weeks before my family noticed. I deliberately quit at 2 PM on a work day to avoid that "clean slate" mentality (you know, that "Oh, crap, fell of the wagon today, guess tomorrow's a new day, might as well finish this pack today and start over in the morning") and I told NO ONE. I was at my sister in law's house, and my brother in law tried to bring me an ashtray when I went out for a walk. I said, "No, I don't need that" and suddenly everyone realized they hadn't seen me with a cigarette in two weeks. My father in law about had a stroke - he thought he was losing it, mentally. "My fondest wish! How could I not have noticed!" I almost threw a pillow at him when he started discussing all the bad things about smoking and I could feel the "rebellion factor" kicking in. But all in all, I really lost all cravings for them - and I think what I explained in my post is why.

Great anecdote there, Holly. What a great guy, your father in law. The matter of your health was very important to him. It's quite obvious from your story.

Using peppers as substitute to tame the craving was very unorthodox but effective. Beat all these fancy nicotine patches and nicorettes! :)

That's a funny thing, too - I tried the patches. The lowest dose did weird things to my heart rate and gave me palpitations, made me feel really sick. I ripped that puppy off my arm and never looked back.

Congratulations to you and Holly!

You know, I think it's not so much my blogging buddies that keep me honest, as my group of non-blogging buddies. It's so easy to get obsessed by metrics and OMG! X linked to me! OMG, new page rank! and talking with folks who have no idea about that and are just wanting to know, hey is she delivering the entertainment or not keeps me grounded.

But between us, I still get giddy at all of that!

The moment my non-blogging buddies give me the glassy stare I shut up, Tracy. Very effective reminder that the rest of the world does not share my excitement. ",)

Haha Tracy, LJ!
I have the same relationship with my friends now - I keep talking to them about blogging and they just smile and feign interest. lol!
But I think I've started to get to them - just recently some of them expressed interest in starting a blog although mostly because they want to earn from the net. lol. I haven't told them how crazy difficult that part is. Haha.

You're a good internet marketer, Rey. You know what will appeal to your friends. Ahahaha. Most of new bloggers - at least in the Philippines - started with the idea of earning online. I know I did. :)

Thank you, Tracy! I really wasn't trying to keep Jan honest, though he and I have a friendly competitive streak and I wouldn't ever have concerned myself with Alexa rankings if he hadn't tipped me off to them. As Dave Doolin says, it keeps my "monkey brain" happy.

Jan, I didn't even realize you smoked! We need to devise a competition that gets you to quit and me to lose weight!

Awesome! Where's all that traffic coming from?

Twitter visitors, Gem. With a sprinkling of SU visitors. :)