Improving Alexa Rank Is Embarrassingly Easy
I’m interested in many more things about the internet than I think are actually important. Two examples: (1) I like to learn about how social media services are used, though I am a very light user of them. (My Twitter and Facebook presence are dominated by my automatic blog feeds, so I’m “there” without ever really being “there.”) (2) I think Google AdWords is an ingenious idea, so I permit them on my site so I can see how they work even though they don’t actually generate much revenue. (What it does generate above costs goes to charity.)
And then there’s the world of domain ranking, of which Google’s PageRank is perhaps the best known and widely used since it informs every Google search. The Alexa rank was unknown to me until I noticed that some lists of blogs and sites are based on it. (There are many other types of ranks: Compete, mozRank, Technorati, and no doubt others).
With each type of rank there are websites and blogs that offer advice on how to improve your site’s score. In general I’m skeptical such techniques work, or was. Then, for fun, I tried some very simple approaches suggested on Dosh Dosh to boost this site’s Alexa rank, and they worked. Here’s what I did:
- On all four computers I use, I installed the SearchStatus Firefox plug-in, an Alexa toolbar for Firefox (*).
- I asked my family and a few friends to do the same, though I am only aware that two other individuals did so.
- I placed an Alexa rank meter widget on my site (scroll down and see it at the bottom of the middle column).
- I wrote this post.
That’s it. And in four month’s time this site’s Alexa rank improved by an order of magnitude. (Because it includes the same link as the Alexa rank meter widget, this post may have helped too, but I published it after the rank improvement just described had already occurred. For the same reason, item 4 can’t explain the rank improvement to date either.)
I roughly know why these techniques work. Alexa uses data sent by their toolbars and from users who click on the meter widget to estimate the proportion of all toolbar users and meter widget clickers that go to one’s site. So, by increasing toolbar users who visit this site (mostly just me and a few family members and friends) and thanks to the (likely very few) individuals clicking on the meter on my site, I am influencing Alexa’s statistics.
The fourth item in the list above also improves Alexa rank to the extent it draws other Alexa toolbar users to one’s site. The theory is that many Alexa toolbar users are hunting for ways to improve their own site’s statistics so they will visit sites with a post that screams: “How to Improve Your Alexa Rank” or “Alexa Rank Boosting.” Now, that’s not why I wrote this post, but I know that there may be Alexa-rank improving consequences, which will be fun to watch. (Like I said, sometimes I find even the useless somewhat interesting.)
What I find most interesting and surprising about all this is that the basis for Alexa ranking is so stupid. Clearly until today (with item 4) I have not changed traffic patterns to my site one bit via these techniques. Yet my site’s ranking dramatically improved. This is gaming, pure and simple, and shows what a joke the Alexa rank is. I’m not sure why anybody believes it is of value. It is a bit like fiat currency. It is of value because people think it is. That it is so easily manipulated is, frankly, embarrassing. Knowing this I mentally devalue Alexa ranks. I think they’re worthless except for the value others place on them.
Still, it seems to matter for some purposes so there is no harm in obtaining a better rank. And, clearly, it is not so hard to do just that.
(*) I’ve read that some Alexa toolbars send more than just the standard URL visitation and browser data to Alexa. Some blogs say that some toolbars send Alexa the data one types into online forms. That’s a bit frightening. But it seems the Firefox SearchStatus toolbar doesn’t do that.
Two Papers of Interest
Two papers in the current issue of Health Economics look interesting to me. I may not have time to read them but others might wish to. They’re listed below with links and abstracts.
The first addresses the question of whether the fact that individuals switch health plans results in lower use of preventative services. Since provision of preventative services is a current investment for a future return, high turnover offers an opportunity for an insurer to benefit from the investments of others and to dodge the consequences of its own under-investment.
The second paper below documents the variation in value of a quality adjusted life year (QALY) across countries. Since figures are not reported in the same currency they are hard to compare. But the authors also estimated the discount rate of QALY value across countries. The QALY discount rate in Japan is almost twice that in the U.S., for example.
Many preventive healthcare procedures are widely recognized as cost-effective but have relatively low utilization rates in the US. Because preventive care is a present-period investment with a future-period expected financial return, enrollee turnover among private insurers lowers the expected return of this investment. In this paper, I present a simple theoretical model to illustrate the suboptimal provision of preventive healthcare that results from insurers ‘free riding’ off of the provision from others. I also provide an empirical test of this hypothesis using data from the Community Tracking Study’s Household Survey. I use lagged market-level measures of employment-induced insurer turnover to identify variation in insurers’ expectations and test for the effect of turnover on several different measures of medical utilization. As expected, I find that turnover has a significantly negative effect on the utilization of preventive services and has no effect on the utilization of acute services used as a control.
Takeru Shiroiwa, et al., International survey on willingness-to-pay (WTP) for one additional QALY gained: what is the threshold of cost effectiveness?
Although the threshold of cost effectiveness of medical interventions is thought to be £20 000-£30 000 in the UK, and $50 000-$100 000 in the US, it is well known that these values are unjustified, due to lack of explicit scientific evidence. We measured willingness-to-pay (WTP) for one additional quality-adjusted life-year gained to determine the threshold of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio. Our study used the Internet to compare WTP for the additional year of survival in a perfect status of health in Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Taiwan, Australia, the UK, and the US. The research utilized a double-bound dichotomous choice, and analysis by the nonparametric Turnbull method. WTP values were JPY 5 million (Japan), KWN 68 million (ROK), NT$ 2.1 million (Taiwan), £23 000 (UK), AU$ 64 000 (Australia), and US$ 62 000 (US). The discount rates of outcome were estimated at 6.8% (Japan), 3.7% (ROK), 1.6% (Taiwan), 2.8% (UK), 1.9% (Australia), and 3.2% (US). Based on the current study, we suggest new classification of cost-effectiveness plane and methodology for decision making.
Value-Based Insurance at a Portland Steel Mill
Kaiser Health News staff writer Julie Appleby reports today on value-based insurance soon to be offered to workers at a Portland steel mill.
[E]mployees with certain conditions — asthma, congestive heart failure, diabetes, depression, heart disease, chronic bronchitis or emphysema — would get prescription drugs and visits with physicians free or at greatly reduced rates. High blood pressure, another common condition, would qualify for low-cost care if it was part of an overall diagnosis of heart disease.
Conversely, they’d pay much more if they have a treatment or test from a list of about 20 broad categories, including knee or hip replacement, cardiac bypass surgery, artery-opening stents, hysterectomies, high-tech-imaging exams or emergency room visits.
Appleby goes on to report that value-based design is not without controversy. In a world with heterogeneous responses to treatments there is no way that one set of financial incentives will seem fair to all policyholders, or to all clinicians. This is an unavoidable consequence to cost control via value-based design.
On the other hand, it is imaginable that some of those faced with relatively higher cost sharing due to their mix of use ultimately benefit in absolute terms from an overall reduction in health care costs. That is, relative to the counter-factual world with cost sharing incentives that are insensitive to efficacy and cost offsets, value-based design may benefit more people than just those with preferred conditions.
Forgotten Wisdom
I am sorry to say that everyone was totally wrong. I’m talking about all those folks who had children before me who told me what to expect, how I should handle things, and how my life would change with kids. You thought you were giving me the essential secrets of parenting. You thought you were preparing me for life with kids.
You were wrong.
You left out some things that turned out to be important. So, I’m writing to set the record straight. These are the true essential facts about kids and parenting.
Fact 1: Everything Is Chicken. It is well known that all flavors of meat are variants of chicken. Before having kids I thought this wisdom was cultural. Wrong. It’s genetic. Kids who can barely talk already know it.
My younger child loves eating fish and has since she could eat. At restaurants she asks for fish by name. She calls it “fish.” We order her fish. When it comes we call it “fish” too and give her a lump of fish to eat. Upon finishing her portion of fish she always says, “Want more chicken.” Same for beef, pork, or any other meat.
Apparently the class of food that seems like chicken is broader than the flesh of dead animals. True story: one morning at breakfast the little one (age 2) asked her older sister (age 5), “What is that? Chicken?” Her sister explained that no, it is a strawberry. The little one says, “Strawberry? That must be yummy chicken for you!”
Fact 2: Childhood Is a Series of Mental Disorders. Kids will drive you crazy. It is easy for them. They’re already crazy. But they are a special form of crazy that is a different kind of bonkers every few months. They ricochet from bipolar to passive aggressive to agraphobic to ADD to OCD and back again. They’re like little in-home productions of the DSM. I didn’t know it was a screenplay.
Fact 3: A Pound of Food Has Three Pounds of Crumbs. Yes, kids are nuts. But even more than that, they are nuts with crumbs. Nobody tells you about the crumbs. In an apparent violation of the laws of physics, every meal generates enough crumbs for three more meals. Actually, some meals have, stunningly, even higher crumb yields, in particular those involving: rice, bread, any baked good, or grated cheese. I don’t even know why I make myself a plate of food. I could easily sustain myself on my kids’ crumbs.
Fact 4: Disposable Diapers Don’t Perform Well in the Washing Machine. This, by far, is the most important parenting advice you’ll ever receive: don’t let disposable diapers get in the washing machine. The only thing worse than a disposable diaper in the wash is two disposable diapers in the wash. This I know from first hand experience. It isn’t the poop or pee that makes it so bad. That’s got nothing to do with it. It’s the goo inside the diapers.
Diapers are designed to absorb liquid, a lot of it, but not tens of gallons of water. When a diaper reaches its carrying capacity it does what anybody who has had too much to drink would do: explode. Upon detonation, all the nice liquid absorbing goo inside the diaper begins to slosh around the washing machine.
Do you know what that goo does in the wash? It turns into goo pellets. Goo pellets are paradoxically both a solid spherical pellet and a glob of gooey jell. Like the dual wave/particle nature of light, diaper goo pellets have perplexed physicists for centuries. The only things physicists have figured out about goo pellets is that they (a) absorb a lot of pee and (b) adhere readily to the inside walls of a washing machine.
If the goo pellets would make up their mind and just be sold pellet or liquid goo one could clean them up easily. But no. They hang playfully in a state of superposition: impossible to wipe or wash away, but very easy to smear around. Believe me, a diaper (or two) in the wash makes for a bad day. Should you be so unfortunate to drop three or more into a load do yourself a favor and just throw away the machine.
These four facts are all a person needs to be prepared for parenting. Since the species has, apparently, existed for millennia it may be that our ancestors once knew some of these pearls of wisdom. Somehow in our modern age they have been lost. Having now brought them to your attention, I leave it to you to share them with your friends who fancy themselves as future parents. They won’t believe these tidbits are important, but they’ll thank you later.
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