Google vs Alexa...what the heck?

I'm a little bewildered at this new thing Alexa, their toolbar and all that.I've just gotten the hang of Google's stuff, lol-well, as much as I can being me ;) -and staring at that little PR bar when I surf, lol...but now someone's approached me to make my rankings better in Alexa because *gasp* I'm at 643,735 ...uuummm, okay...I'm guessing that number came from this Alexa toolbar...another toolbar...sigh...
Point is, should I care ?When I visit Alexa, I'm ranked fairly well when you do a search for my keywords there.What the heck does it mean I'm 643* yeah okay I get the point I'm down there*735
Is this the 'new' engine and what about Google, lol?I'm quite happy w/my rankings and their toolbar (swear I'm PR'ing my dreams now, though) but what or who ia this little unsurper?Here I was focusing on PR and now I should be trying to stomp on sites to get higher on Alexa?And what is that based on : ?
Lol, must be early, I'm ranting, but perplexed.I know Alexa is run by/in association w/Amazon.Really, though, in comparision to Google, what are they in the world?And should I care if I'm in the bottom?
Thanks-I'm off to have a cup of tea and ponder this email offer, lol...

Oh oh, and I did see the topic below about this already but thought maybe someone could shed a better light on this, fresher view, lol...I'm not going to install the Alexa bar since as stated in the previous post, it's a spyware or at least has a bit of a problem in that area
Again, thanks if anyone responds to my rant (maybe it's the cold Canadian air getting to me this morning..hhmm.. ..Darrin, they need a little frigid freezing Smiley guy, lol

Ha ha - sounds good!!

It was said before that "SpyBot" shows the Alexa Toolbar as spyware. I'm not sure how valid that it however. I know that Spybot Usually shows up cookies for deletion .. but I don't have the Alexa bar installed[/b]

just like one version of the google toolbar has spyware, they ask you if you want to send information about the sites you visit to google, i thiink it is about the same thing for the alexia toolbar, just some feedback from the program about what users in general are looking at.... kind of an internet neilson rating system

Oh okay, thanks for that clarification.I really don't want to Alexa bar, but I wondered what is really going on w/Alexa...and the lower you are the better?Just weird, lol....any new light I'd sure appreciate be shone on this
Hey, I have a little frigid cat emblem , lol..I'd be willing to donate her to the cause ;)

That number "ranking" they were talking about was the number of visitors you average ranked against other websites in alexa. This is just based on numbers they aquire thru use of the Alexa toolbar. I wouldnt put too much stock into it. Alexa serves a modified version of Googles results and isnt highly traveled in comparison.
The lower your ranking # the more highly traveled your site is by users of the toolbar.

While you should never put all your eggs in one basket even if it is Google - Alexa is a basket I dont bother with.

EXACTLY

Ah, okay got the whole feedback thing.And think I'm getting a handle of the ranking.So my sitting at 600,000 whatever compared to a site at 300,000...I'm doing better than they are?That's a tad confusing.So this person telling me how they're at 137,000 compared to me isn't so great, lol ;)..am I getting this?
I do know their stats are off in like sites linking to me 'cos they only have 104 listed when I know it's 180+..
Thanks guys ...I really didn't think it was 'that important' to be ranked w/them, since as I said searching w/my keywords, I'm there in the top w/them too...but this email threw me this morning

I don't know but when I installed their toolbar the cookies read something about email, they had like four with that type of name. I just didn't like that idea didn't know what they may hide in that download so I took it all off anyway.
Just my 2 cents Susan

The lower the number the more traffic you site gets (or at least from Alexa Toolbar users).

The score is measured using both hits and visits. If I were to visit your homepage, then you might go down by 2 points, but If i continue to surf your site by visiting other pages, then it might go down by 0.5 per page. The more pages that people visit the better and you "Alexa Rank" will go down.

It's like golf - the lower score the better!! Although I've never seen a negative number

Jeez, that is confusing...

what part is confusing you? elaborate a little and we may be able to help

Basically it's like this

More Traffic = Lower Score

Which is confusing is you think about it It's almost like inverting your traffic. If you get no traffic you'll have the highest score possible. This might make it easy to sell advertisements to slightly dim folk. If you were to claim you have a 1,000,000 Alexa rank then people might think you are ranked very highly and want to advertise with you!!

rofl, I love that explanation Darrin.I've got it, so really, I'm not too bad off then w/my 6*whatever ranking, considering one of my main competitors is at the 400,000 whatever rank...so I'm doing better than they are...right ;)?
Thanks for explaining everyone-seems a very odd way to rank someone's site, though, or is that just me?I still just like my Google, lol
Okay I'm off to sew like a fiend-new orders came in so someone's finding my site, roflmao-and that's what matters .

Hey Kat,

I think I might have been bored or something one night, so I wrote a long article on Alexa in a previous post.
It is here: http://www.seochat.com/viewtopic.php?t=143

It explains the alexa rating, benefits, flaws, etc.. Personally I use both Pagerank and Alexa. Pagerank I use for SEO, Alexa I use to verify and track traffic to websites I buy or develop and how they are doing over time.

Well, its 65 and a nice day here. We had 4 inches of snow last weekend, made front page in many papers. Last time we got snow was in 1996. It crazy weather here. Hope its not cold up there in Canada!

Enjoy,
Ben
Texas