After seeing Yaro and Burt post that adding an Alexa button (or widget) to your website could possibly improve your Alexa rankings, I thought i would give it a try.

I have a couple websites that have “No Data” for an Alexa rank when both average over 50 visitors a day.

So I added an Alexa button to each of these sites and waited a week. The results; nothing happened. Both sites still show “No Data”, even though they are calling the Alexa widget at least 50 timers per day, per site.

I had my suspicions at that time that the Alexa buttons do not help your Alexa rankings, but to make absolute sure I wasn’t doing something wrong I thought, let’s just email Alexa and ask them.

Here’s what I wrote to Alexa:

I’ve seen a few bloggers mention that installing an Alexa button on your website can increase your Alexa rank.

(like found here: http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup))

Is this true? I thought Alexa rank was only affected by toolbar installs?

Thanks much,
Mark

And roughly a week later they sent this response, which should put to bed the myth that Alexa buttons improve Alexa ranking:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting Alexa Internet.

You’re right. Our Site Widgets merely display the traffic ranking details that are available at Alexa.com. Our Toolbar is the way we gather traffic data.

We appreciate your interest in Alexa.

Best regards,
Alexa Internet Customer Service

Super! Thanks Alexa team for the response. There answer is also echoed in the Alexa FAQ:

Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period.

If you ever wondered if that Alexa button in your navigation was doing your Alexa rankings any good, the answer is no, at least for now, at least according to Alexa ;-)