How to you check the popularity of your website

Websites can also be categorized similarly based on popularity and reputation. Here are few methods for checking the popularity and reputation of any website.

Alexa Ranking

This is perhaps the most used and most controversial method of checking the popularity of a website. In this method, the traffic rank of a website as compared to other websites in the internet is measured. Traffic rank is an indication of the popularity of a website. For normal website, an alexa traffic rank of anything less than 500,000 is considered to be good enough. The top ten ranked sites in the world according to alexa are:

1. Google - Alexa Rank 1
2. Facebook - Alexa Rank 2
3. Youtube - Alexa Rank 3
4. Yahoo.com – Alexa Rank 4
5. Blogger.com – Alexa Rank 5
6. Baidu - Alexa Rank 6
7. Wikipedia - Alexa Rank 7
8. Windows Live – Alexa Rank 8
9. Twitter - Alexa Rank 9
10. QQ.com – Alexa Rank 10

Inbound Links

Inbound links are the links pointing to a website from other sites.  More number of inbound links from different websites indicates the reputation of the website. Although Alexa lists the number of inbound links, not all links are actually listed. It is difficult to find all the inbound links of a particular website. Different tools for checking inbound links for a particular website are available on the internet, but results vary greatly. The Quality of inbound links also matters, an inbound link from a reputed website like bbc.com is worth more than 10 inbound links from lesser known sites.

Finally, there are websites or blogs that may be popular among a local community and frequently visited by their members. So, for some websites, the popularity and reputation may be irrelevant as long as it serves the purpose of a community.