Can ALEXA RANKINGS be cheated?
 

See title

yes

Yes, if you know hundreds of people with the Alexa toolbar.

Those Alexa programs that supposedly "cheat" the system are scams.

Yup they can be.. quite easily.

Which is why its funny TCG 3 will pay you for links based on em.

Hmmmm so if you have 3 sites that autoload the toolbar and then funnel them (after they have d/l'ed and installed) into a 4th site, the 4th site will go up?

ssssh

Do you have ICQ?

make a virus that installs the alexa toolbar and sets your site as the homepage

No need to be a virus. There are other ways.

The guys running the holystic program know what I mean :winkwink:

just because you dont call it a virus doesnt mean its not

Virii are programs that propagate themselves. This is a server/exploit based mechanism. There's a thread about this 2 weeks ago. Great read.

ouch, they might get a lot of scams

A trojan horse isn't a virus either..

If Alexa can be cheated, imagine the scams that are probably being perpetrated out there now...


Ads being sold cuz of the (fake) popularity of a site

is the most obvious

How many people actually have an alexa toolbar? just wondering

7

LOL

Russian bastards probably mastered this shit... hell, probably PIONEERED this shit.:BangBang:

everything can be cheated

http://www.uploadit.org/freepic1/banner2.gif

how does exactly alexa tracks traffic of the site?
it never knows when i visit one site or another or is it?
i know i never installed anything from alexa, did they do it w/o my authorization? - if yes, then why would anyone base their desicion (or judgement) about a web site on alexa's rankings in the first place; if no, then how else are they able to track traffic besides having their tool on the server side, i'm sure server owners wont give such opportunity voluntarily and getting access on servers w/o authorization present more challenges then getting on clients pc. so, what is the way for the third party to masure accurately popularity of site?

yes