In the ever changing space of search engine rankings, we find trends in what we like to call a formula. A formula as we know it is associated to a mathematical equation, which in the case of search engine rankings and Alexa rankings, is not something that is ever going to be made public. Search engine marketers have been debating trends on the subject since the Internet’s inception. The formula is an everlasting debate.

Discussions like the one that follows can be found on Internet Marketing forums, comments on blogs, and abundantly, over web 2.0 platforms and social media. This question was recently posed to me:

Does the Alexa ranking impact search results? To my knowledge it doesn’t.

It’s only an indicator that doesn’t in reality mean much.

In your case it does because you’re focused on valid keywords.

My answer:

Who knows what the actual formula is in search engine rankings?  Search Engine Marketers, SEM SEO Experts have been debating this question for years. I believe the strongest part of the Alexa ranking formula is associated to traffic and the secondary is associated to search engine ranking and backlinks: There is definitely a relationship to the Alexa ranking there.

Alexa also includes domain age as a factor. However we have rapidly ranked sites into higher Alexa rankings, which indicates domain age is not a strong link in the equation. I do not believe the search engines look to Alexa ratings as a large percentage of the search engine ranking equation.

Search engines are mostly concerned with serving the highest quality content to users, and the strongest link in that equation would be backlinks and valuable site content. Alexa and search engine ranking have that in common: They are both looking for backlinks and valuable site content. Serve valuable content and you shall rank… for today.

Someone recently debated the fact that their SEO SEM formula was - and should remain a secret.

There are no secrets in secrets in SEO and SEM. It is all out there for us to learn. We just have to be around long enough and work hard enough to apply the SEM strategies.. The real secret is held in the search engine ranking formula. That is the real secret.

Alexa Rankings Formula is listed here.