For those who follow the science of what has been come to be known as “search engine optimization” or SEO, Alexa is a widely known registry service primarily used to help leverage the ranking and credibility of a website within a search engine, although a secondary feature is being able to review, aggregate and analyze traffic using a variety of variables.
Whereas Technorati and other registry services allow relatively simple and direct claims to ownership of a site, Alexa contains restrictions to claiming ownership that rejects registry of a variety of free sites such as WordPress. Now whether this is the accountability of Alexa or perhaps WordPress is dragging behind for some reason, but either way the results are still the same. Those that choose to use free services are not permitted to access the same level of credibility simply based on the service provider, rather than the quality of content on the site.
So should you bring out the soapboxes, paint the signs and protest such a restriction or are there other ways around this exclusion from a set of tools that is known to influence search engines? Although you are certainly welcome to send them an email stating your opposition to the restriction, if registering your web content with Alexa and other registry services are of importance to you, then you will need to consider avoiding the adoption of a subdomain name and investing the few bucks into a domain name of your own.
This purchase of a domain name already sets you on a completely different ranking path and once you own the domain, you will have to choose your hosting service carefully. For example, GoDaddy has the ability to quickly integrate WordPress content, thereby opening your WordPress work to registry with Alexa as well as other services. However, you will have to choose whether or not your domain name registration is public or private. Most companies charge for the privacy service (I have yet to find one that doesn’t), but your domain name will still show up in the WhoIs database or some other domain lookup service.
Make no mistake that there are many ways to abuse this freedom to take claim of an address for yourself. For example, there are individuals who purchase domain names in bulk only and then return the domain names after a short period of time…for a full refund. What this action does is that it activates the address so that the primary error message that would normally show up when no one has ever registered the address is removed and typically some form of advertisement-filled, clickable content takes its place.
Another example would be spamming a free service by opening up thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of accounts. To the skeptics who think this is a time-intensive proposition or not possible, not only can this be done in a matter of days (if not hours), it can be virtually traceless if a botnet network is used to open up the accounts and the operator has at least an inkling of what to do with the timing of such a growth in account count. There are few blogging services that have not had to endure such an assault and once a site has been blacklisted by another registry service, it can be quite difficult to shift such a designation away from the registered address.
There are certainly other layers of registering your site with another service, but this first round of choices holds its own set of positives and negatives that can have significant implications in the future. But for many people, being recognized by a free service search engine is far more valuable that being registered with another service that helps elevate your standing so make sure you think through how important these types of registering services are going to be within your marketing plan.
The record company behind a musician might help with the initial distribution boost, but ultimately it is the fans of the artist that controls the rise and/or fall of a song or CD. The same thing applies to who you file claim over an Internet address. Registering with a few or many services will take you only so far in the search engines so if a registy service rejects your claim to ownership, never fear. If you have the content, the credit and subsequent credibility will follow.
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