There’s a fun hypothesis saying that you are the average of the closest five people around you. I believe this to be true, do you? What’s interesting about the blogosphere community is that anybody with enough intention can start a website. The link gives you a step-by-step guide as to how you can get up and running in under 30 minutes. Some blogs are interesting, some are not, but regardless we can all compete with the Business Insiders, Huffington Posts, and BuzzFeeds of the web in our own niche way!
Alexa is a dynamic website ranking and information company owned by Amazon, which has over 40 million users world wide. The tool bar is free, and easy to download. The Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge is straight forward. If you’re outside of the top 200,000, get in the top 200,000 within 6 months. I can’t even name 100 sites, let alone 199,999 sites. Can you? If you’re already in the top 200,000, get in the top 100,000. And if you’re already in the top 100,000, get in the top 50,000.
There are some who poo poo the Alexa ranking system, and I recognize their two main arguments: 1) The system only tracks visitors who have the Alexa Toolbar installed, and 2) There are cases where some websites with bazillions of users have a worse ranking than sites with less users. We don’t know why, because we don’t fully know what goes into the calculations. It may be because readers don’t visit and just read off their RSS. That said, the Alexa ranking system continues to grow, and is the best system we got. At least 40 million webmasters around the world think so, and there has to be something to it if Google, Facebook, Yahoo and YouTube are ranked #1, #2, #3, and #4, respectively.
Since starting this site, I’ve been rejected as a guest poster, didn’t even get responded to, let alone make it as one of the 7 finalists for one site’s staff writer tryouts, denied admission to a personal finance blog network, and even got my first carnival submission rejected. But through all the rejections, I took comfort in my friend, Alexa, who is always by my side motivating me to keep going. I’m sure many of you have been rejected as well. Here’s your chance to create our own network of powerful friends by joining the challenge!
BENEFITS OF BEING IN THE TOP 200,000
* You’ll get to compete for a spot on the top personal finance blogs list (Yakezie Network). I’ve heard some publishers in the Top 100 don’t even bother to associate with others outside page 1. Oh, the snobbery! But seriously, if you’re on page one of any top blogging list, opportunities start coming to you, because this list has become the default ranking in the community, and the default ranking in the community uses Alexa.
* Motivation. Unless you’ve got an established blog already, writing gets very lonely and discouraging sometimes when not many people come to visit. You might say you are writing for yourself and don’t care, but if that’s the case, why make your writing public? Witnessing progress is fun!
* If you love free swag, you’ll get approached by authors and publicists looking to send you tons of free books to review and giveaway. You may even get a catalog of a publisher’s entire library of books from which you can choose from. I even got an $800 product to stand on for my standing desk! You know how movie stars get all those goodie bags of stuff to sample at the Oscars even though they’re already rich and don’t need more free stuff? It’s kinda like that, a virtuous cycle of people who provide mutual benefits. If you someday wish to write a book, you now have direct access to the very people who reject hundreds of authors everyday!
* Advertisers will flock to you, and ask you to pimp things you’ve never heard of. Some of them, could be gems, but many will be junk traps. On occasion, you’ll find some amazing products that just fit so well with your content. If you have an established site, going to advertisers with affiliate programs becomes much easier as well.
Here’s how much you could make with 300,000 pageviews a month
* Other big sites who never bother responding to you, suddenly take notice and give you the time of day. Those comments you leave asking for feedback or help actually get addressed. Cut them some slack though, because I’m sure they get inundated. You can also join plenty of “exclusive” networks if you wish.
* You can earn corporate consulting income or freelance writing income. You can also leverage your site to be your resume for new consulting gigs. I’ve received multiple six figure consulting gig opportunities with financial tech startups since I left Corporate America in 2012. Once was with Personal Capital for two years, and another is with Motif Investing. Both are innovative fintech companies, which I’m proud to promote on my site because they are helping people make and save money. Personal Capital is great for tracking your net worth for free.
* You cultivate a competitive edge, get inspired and appreciate those who are way up the rankings. I used to think watching golf on TV was extremely boring. After I began hacking it up on my own, I now find watching golf extremely fascinating! Same thing with a website. You truly start to appreciate the marketing geniuses of some bloggers out there, and therefore strive to better yourself.
* Girls or guys, depending on your sex and preference, will love you when you say you have a “top” website at the bars. For a brief moment, you can escape your mundane day job and pretend you are someone really important. You could try saying, “Hi there good looking, I am the the CEO & Editor of X, America’s #1 personal finance site” for example, and you’ll immediately be whisked away into la la land. After all, bloggers are the some of the sexiest people on Earth who also happen to live a life of freedom!
TIPS ON BREACHING ALEXA TOP 200,000
* Badge & Toolbar. Download and install the Alexa toolbar and put the badge on your site. The Alexa toolbar is fascinating because it shows you so much detail about other sites you visit.The badge will naturally peak interest as well. The ranking is dynamic, and motivating.
* Content. Nothing else really matters, and that includes doing all that SEO stuff. I had no idea what a site-map was, or what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) even stood for the first 4 months. If you write something you feel strongly about, you’ll do great. Try and write with a thesis. Whether you are right or wrong is besides the point. What’s more important is to get readers thinking about the topic at hand. Write what you know, too, because if you try to fake it, people can tell.
* Content Length. Did you know that the average person spends just 7 seconds on a resume? The point is that people have short attention spans, and if you write in huge paragraphs, with no breaks in the post for categories, you’ll likely lose readers. After the 1,500th word, people’s eyes start glazing over, unless it’s superbly written. This post violates this rule with 2,100 words, so I need to practice!
* Personality. Realize that you can’t please everybody all the time. If you write with no thesis, no conclusion, no personal spin, then what’s really the point? The great thing about the internet is that the market place is so huge, if our friends in America aren’t stopping by, maybe our friends from Australia will!
* Frequency. If you can post 2-4 times a week, that’s good enough! You can try posting everyday, but you increase your chances of burn out, and you’re not getting maximum exposure for the articles you’ve written. Notice how comments fade from your post after a new one comes, even though the older article is only a day or two old Instead, use the days off to visit other sites, comment, build relationships and let your articles percolate.
* Branding. Get an image that one can easily recognize as you. Go to Gravatar.com, and use that image in many things you do. There are a lot of Davids, Johns, and Jims in the community. Instead, sign off as a variation of your site, or your site itself because nobody has a monopoly on your common name, and you may confuse others.
* Read & Comment. Actually read an entire post and get the concept. If the post is too boring, skip it, but if it’s interesting enough, share your thoughts. Comments inspire writers, because it shows that someone is listening. There will be reciprocity.
* Twitter. Twitter is probably the best micro-blogging tool out there, which I don’t do enough because it’s off during the day. I’m amazed how some have thousands of followers, and can also follow hundreds of people as well. Make sure you have a widget that will allow others to retweet your content easily.
* Guest Post. Tap other bloggers’ audiences by writing your best stuff for other people. You’ll inevitably gain some fans from their RSS or e-mail distribution list. Guest posting is one of the fastest and best ways to develop linkbacks and reach people you want to reach.
* Promote Others. If you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel in the rankings, be selfless and promote others relentlessly. Even if you are doing OK for yourself, promote others freely. That includes re-tweeting and highlighting other articles on your own site. The higher ranked sites will be appreciative and eventually return the favor.
* Don’t Think About Making Money. Because it will likely take a year or so if you’re lucky to earn over $1,000/month from your blog, the money you receive may demotivate you. As soon as you start writing for money, you start losing your soul and it’s not as fun. Write what you want to write, and the money will come.
Related: How Much Can You Make Blogging For A Living
Build Great Relationships
If you just focus on two things, focus on content and promoting others.
Feel free to link back to a Financial Samurai article of your choosing. Live a comment and I’ll show you love back. You want to develop relationships with larger sites that will help put you on the map.
Start An Awesome Blog Today
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 16 years to build.
If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom in your life, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. Hosting costs less than $3.5 a month. Everybody should at least have their own website to establish and own their brand online. Corporates have benefitted greatly from the internet, so should you. Here’s my step-by-step tutorial on how to build your own site.
The actions you take today help shape a better future. You never know where the journey will take you!
Updated for 2019 and beyond. 10 years of blogging is in the bag. We live 100% off our passive income and save all of our online income to build more passive income.
I really love how evergreen this post is! It’s great to come on here and see others join the challenge. Just for some encouragement, I am nowhere near where I want to be but I started blogging in February (2019) and my rank has gone from 11,000,00+ to 2.3 Million and U.S. ranking from “unranked” to 500,000+ to now 170,338 – all within 3 months. And I know there is so much more I could be doing to promote my posts, so I can already see a pathway to continued improvement.
This is so fantastic! I am on the same journey as well! I just broke 500K yesterday, from the 4.6 million that I started with over a month ago. Of course, there’s still a lot to be done, but I am motivated be successful in the 6-month challenge!
I’m curious other people’s opinion. Do you think having a blog with multiple topics hinders ranking and SEO? Just begin contributing wealth ideas to a food blog that we took a break from. Not sure if it would be smarter to start a separate blog for the wealth info or have all the content in one blog with different categories to gather traffic from both kinds of readers. It’s so new that I’d prefer to make an adjustment now before getting too far along and realizing we should have made a change in the beginning. Thanks!
Hi Jerry. So, it’s a year later now, and I think it’s been MOSTLY a hindrance. We recently switched our blog over to one subject (something we care about a lot) and abandoned our “mixed bag” blog.
Even our forum that gets TONS of organic traffic as the unofficial fan forum for an NFL Team that I won’t mention lol, even it took a hit because of (I think) our Off Topic forums.
Good news is… hey, we were just looking at rando posts for our ‘blogger burnout’ and came across your post a year later, so that counts for something, right? LOL
Keep up the good fight and send that newsletter our way :)
Thanks, Sam. This one was inspiring. I’m still in the very early stages of blogging. You mentioned in this post that you paid little attention to SEO in the early stages. I have done the exact same. I wonder, however, if that changed with time for you and you did start to optimize headlines, etc. After all, you did say later in this same post that 3/4 or your visitors are coming from organic traffic. So Google is finding you somehow….
Hey guys,
Sign me up!
Have worked on promoting the blog, but due to the lack of time, I focused on other things, such as creating high value content. I will progressively promote the blog and I hope to get higher in the ranks. I started my blog in March 2016.
As of January 10th: 
320,039 Alexa Traffic Rank
78,287 Traffic Rank in US
Hi Guys, Here’s our update: Global 1,517,852 Alexa Traffic Rank
United States 258,846 Traffic Rank in US.
Is anyone able to offer feedback or insights on how to countinue to grow our traffic and better promote our content? Thanks!!
Congrats on your progress so far. It gets tougher the better your rank. Are you posting every few days and seeking out new sites to comment on and link to?
Nice work!
My only feedback is to,
A) Post consistently, and
B) Connect with other bloggers by commenting on their articles and/or doing guest posts
I find this two step approach worked well for me. It kept me diligent in creating new material and it made the whole process much more fun.
I don’t see how you can both work fulltime, blog daily and comment on other blogs. I choose instead to blog about a very niche topic, German Real Estate
I just accepted the Yakezie Challenge. My goal is to reach 250,000 internationally and 50,000 in the United States. I’ve been working on improving my Alexa ranking for the past six months, and I’ve seen great results. This challenge should help me increase my ranking even more.
My ranks today are as follows: International 497,600 and U.S. 86,050.
I’m really excited to network with all of you. Reach out to me through the contact me section of my site if your looking to write a blog post or network in some other way.
Best of luck to all of you with this challenge
Investment Hunting
Evening everybody,
I have just officially accepted the Yakezie Challenge. I have been blogging for four months and hope to reach top 200k within two months. More importantly I hope to meet many new bloggers.
I am currently ranked in the top 250k globally and hope to continue growing!
Posting on update on my progress in just under two months since joining on 6/3/2016 (2,200,00 global at the time):
As of 7/28/16 –
Global ranking: 602,552
US ranking: 74,708
I’ll be shooting for 500,000 and 50,000, respectively, by mid-August.
One year old finance and stock market blog. The blog is about an year old. Present Global Alexa rank is 36,00,000. Lets see how good I pool in by joining the contest. Decided to join and lets see the good results.
OK, I’m 6 months into blogging and I’m ready to join the challenge today (30th June 2016)
Post announcement will be going out today.
Current Global ranking 2,059,547
UK Ranking 55,717
US Ranking 999,287
Look forward to chatting with all you guys!
Glad to see you have decided to join, David. Looking forward to following your progress!
Just a quick update one month after I started the challenge.
Global Ranking 819,304 (+1,240,243)
UK Ranking 27,439 (+28,278)
So far so good!
I officially joined the Yakezie Challenge this morning, June 3, 2016.
Post announcement:
Current Alexa stats:
Global ranking: 2,2530,830
United States ranking: 244,839
welcome! I like your site and you look like you are already well on your way to becoming successful! Or wait, you are already successful and are on your way to greater success! I think your Alexa ranking is very good compared to the length of existence of your blog. You’ve done a great job jumping out in front. May your success continue and grow as you consistently write over the long-term! Have a good one.
Welcome! I love your blog, so I’m excited to see how low your Alexa ranking goes from the Challenge. We started unranked so it was less exciting to just get ranked, but your score could really drop into the Challenge goal! Good luck!
I really love how evergreen this post is! It’s great to come on here and see others join the challenge. Just for some encouragement, I am nowhere near where I want to be but I started blogging in February (2016) and my rank has gone from 15,000,000+ to 1.3 Million and U.S. ranking from “unranked” to 500,000+ to now 170,338 – all within 3 months. And I know there is so much more I could be doing to promote my posts, so I can already see a pathway to continued improvement. Thanks so much for the challenge! It’s what I needed to really get moving and have a tangible way to track results.
Yeah, we were the same way! Started the challenge about 2 weeks ago with no Alexa ranking & now we’re in the 5,000,000 range. It’s exciting to see the progress & learn from everyone else. Welcome to the challenge!
Welcome to challenge, embrace the process and give it time. Slowly but surely the ranking will improve. Good luck!
I have decided to take the plunge and join the Alexa Challenge.
As of today, my Alexa Rank is 6,827,959.
Looking forward to connecting with others over the next 6 months.
Hey, great site! Welcome to the challenge. How long have you been blogging?
Thank you.
Technically, Financial Slacker launched last November with a few pages and posts, but it wasn’t until late January, that I started showing the site to a few friends. I began more actively promoting the site in March. And even more recently, I have started writing more regularly and more often.
It’s been a great experience so far. I have starting meeting and engaging with the members of the community and I’m really enjoying it. I learn something new every day.
I appreciate the complement and look forward to interacting more in the future.
great progress. I think the real take-away for me has been to not give up. The fact that many authors take years for their blogs to become in the top 10 or 20 is interesting. One of the motivations for me is to learn from others and to have fun conversations about topics I’m interested in. When I think about it that way the discipline of writing is less difficult.
Nice work so far! We share a similar timeline in that we both started off with our sites months before ‘launch’. I’ve also started to post 3x/week which would have been unthinkable in the past.
Look forward to seeing your rank rise up!
congrats on your progress and consider writing a guest post and reading the yakezie.com top blogs and commenting there as well. there are a lot of good tips on the other blogs and interesting conversations to be part of.
Thanks. Good advice. I’m definitely open to getting some tips (and giving back when I can).
Still much to learn.
Dames in Debt is joining the Yakezie challenge!
Our current Alexa rank is unranked. :-( Looking forward to getting on the board in the future!
I had no ranking for a while until I validated the Alexa badge on my site and made sure everything was working properly. Once it shows up your Alexa score will be over 15M and drop very quickly. So your early days will show very big improvements which is encouraging.
So I read your comment, and thought “Hmm…I should check that I did everything properly.” Checked things, and boom: we’re at 24,673,413. Already making progress!
Thanks for the tip!
thats great. I suggest searching this site for more tips and also considering a guest post on another blog. this can drive traffic to your site and if you put links to your blog in your guest post (which you should do) these will show up as sites linking in which helps your ranking as well. check out yakezie.com for a list of good blogs that you may want to guest post with.
Thanks! I will definitely do that!
Just an update: 11,645,268! Making progress. Our new goal is to get under 5,000,000 by the end of the challenge.
That’s great – seeing progress is very motivating. I just re-read the post above and am realizing how helpful all of these tips are. Also the post that was just added about working for yourself notes that the financial samurai author worked on his blog for 3 years before monetizing it. I’m glad to have realistic info to guide my goal making. I would think you can break 3,000,000 by the end of the challenge! If you are posting 2-4 times per week and do a guest post or two. Very doable. Congrats on your progress.
New update: 5,585,005. Y’all were right about the ranking dropping quickly. Our goal is still to get under 5,000,000 – hopefully this week! – and then under 1,000,000 for the whole challenge. Seeing what great blogs are still in the 1,000,000 range shows how hard that’s going to be. We’re excited!
Congratulations! That’s great progress in such a short period of time.
And I agree. There are so many wonderful blogs that have been around for a while in the 1 million range. That looks like a challenging benchmark to beat.
Look forward to following your progress.
Thanks for the update.
Looks like you’ll need to set a new goal since you’re already past the 2.5M mark! You’re making excellent progress so far.
It’s so fun to check out these Alexa rankings now that I know what they are…goal is now to get under 1,000,000, which I think will be pretty difficult, but hey, we’ve got like 5 more months!
Distilled Dollar is officially joining the challenge today!
I’m looking forward to connecting with more members within the Yakezie network.
My current Alexa Rank is 1,770,615.
5/26 Update: 799,031! I’ve moved up almost a million spots since I started, which is crazy.
The best part has been connecting with a few other bloggers who have already taken the challenge or are in it now. Keep up the awesome work!
Nice progress! And great content on your site. I love reading your stuff. Keep it up.
Congrats! I’ve been loving all your posts lately.
Keep it up!
Good luck on the progress, it takes some time but it will improve!
Thanks Dr. J – I am at 2,290,020 now. Slow and steady wins the race. My struggle right now is really getting that breakthrough post – the “whale” as Sam calls it. I also am trying to stay anonymous right now due to the nature of my job and am therefore not sure how to use social media that doesn’t link to my real name. I think Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook would really allow me to promote my content better.
Guys – super excited right now. Since getting hooked on FS / Yakezie.com I have started my own blog and now have moved from “No Data” to 20,194,720 on Alexa! I know I know – that’s not very good but it is progress. I have to thank my friend SB over at OneCentAtATime for letting me do a guest post and helping get some traffic to my site. Thanks to FS for all the great content on how and why to start a blog.
Congrats! I jumped from 24 million to 18 million in a couple days :) It’s amazing what consistent writing will do! I am prepping to start guest posts as well.
Rank is now 10,004,526 – new post on getting to $30M in your brokerage account coming Friday
Finally launched my site. No time like the present, so no Alexa rank yet! My blog is
I am starting to get my finances post-graduation in order and started reading a ton about investing and am learning as I write. I’m really into the idea of gamifying things people find scary or boring, and I have had a startup before – maybe writing this blog will spin into a new idea! Would love to chat/collab/link up with other bloggers on this challenge.
Same with us on the no Alexa rank yet! We got this.
My sister and I have a blog that is also very post-grad oriented (www.damesindebt.com).
Looking to join your network. Right now my rank is “no data” since today I just started my blog. Does this still count for the challenge and begin the 6-month countdown? Appreciate the content and motivation to get going on blogging!
We pledge to join. Alexa Traffic Rank is 22,475,137.
John & Richelle,
Welcome to the challenge and look forward to following your progress!
Hi, Thanks! Just an update we reached 12,445,925 in Alexa Traffic Rank! 20 Days into the Challenge, not quite 6 months yet lol! Progress!
Thias, you’re going to awesome! Good luck and let us know how your progress is coming along.
Hey Everyone!
Just started the challenge today and currently sitting at 1,268,410 on Alexa. Obviously I have some work to do but I’m excited to start working at it.
Looking forward to connecting with everyone!
Thias,
That’s awesome and welcome. I started the challenge a couple months ago and it definitely is encouraging to connect with others and have had positive results thus far. Keep fighting the good fight.
Boom! Officially under the 1m mark! 962,737 and moving up on a weekly basis right now!
Love seeing so many others seeing success seeing their ranking improve as well!
Good afternoon All,
I too am up for the Yakezie Challenge, as I would undoubtedly agree with the prior comments by others that have taken the challenge that it is very much a team sport as must as it is about the spirit of the challenge.
My site is: http://www.medschoolfinancial.com
Current Alexa Rank is: 19,084,825 so like some of the others here I have a long way to go as well, but ready to get started!
The site is geared towards the business side of health care, personal finance, costs of health for docs and patients, and managing the mountain of debt that comes along with the desire to walk down a this path in hopes of making a positive difference for others and our families. A lot of topics that are vital but not currently exposed to the degree they should be, so this platform is my effort to do my part.
I welcome all and any input and I will work to do the same. Good luck to you all.
Best regards,
JC
Welcome to the challenge JC! Nice domain name. :)
Per your request, I’ve already got you linked up on my blog… https://www.financiallyalert.com/blogroll/
Good luck!
Hey Michael,
How are things coming along for you? Thanks for the add to the blog, have been following FinanciallyAlert as well and will add to site.
latest alexa rank is moving in the right direction 392,570
Traffic Rank in US. Will definitely keep at it.
Good luck Andrew! I look forward to following your progress. I’m about half way through the challenge and continuing to drop rankings (though it has slowed a bit recently). You will certainly become a better blogger by sticking with the challenge. Have fun.
My 01/22/16 update: 661,260 Global and 169,408 U.S.
Thanks Michael. I’m already finding the Alexa updates to be very dynamic. I like your site. Good job going all in on Net Worth. I’m not quite there yet. I don’t mind sharing the overview, but still a little iffy on sharing every dollar. I’m at 2.4M in Alexa today. Whats your best so far?
Andrew, I wouldn’t worry about NW updates. It’s certainly not for everyone (there are pros and cons either way). Sam here doesn’t disclose specifics, but he gives us little hints here and there that make us go… ooooh… ahhhhh. It took me a few months to decide I wanted to share that information. BTW, my best in 661,260 at the moment… hopefully to get that down significantly. :)
Update Feb 12th 19,084,825
Feb 19th
Global 7,495,199
United States 714,583
I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the challenge so far. It looks like I have been jumping up steadily the past month. Nice to have a benchmark like Alexa to keep you motivated during those weeks where you feel like you aren’t progressing as fast as you would like. How’s everyone else finding it?
Hello! I put on my site last week that I was joining the challenge. I’m really excited to be a part of it and get started. When I joined my Alexa Ranking was 4,767,727, now its 2,694,081
Super excited for this. Can’t wait to network with all of you.
Update!
installed toolbar on 08-28-2015
8/28/2015 772,192 global
09/06/2015 610,402 global
09/24/2015 440,970 global
10/08/2015 355,904 global 106,382 US
10/21/2015 328,799 global 115,025 US
11/19/2015 292,956 global 119,133 US
12/03/2015 288,799 global 104,334 US
Unfortunately I didnt start tracking my US ranking until 10/08
Hey Michael,
Sounds like you’re definitely up for the Challenge. Welcome!
Since I joined, I’ve gone from 22 million to under 700,000. So I can tell you it works!
Laura Beth
Thanks Laura Beth! Congrats on all of your success in such as short amount of time. It’s great to see your progress here. It looks like you went from 6 inbound links to 164 in just a couple of months… incredible! Wishing you continued success.
Hello!
I’m super excited to take on the Yakezie Challenge. It’s great to know I’m in excellent company and wish all other challengers the best of luck! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you succeed.
I am a thirty something early retiree who is lucky to stay home with my kids (3 & 1). When I’m not chasing the little ones around, I’m an active blogger and investor.
My site is: https://www.financiallyalert.com
Current Global Rank – 2,743,395
Current U.S. Rank – 515,885
I blog about financial education, early retirement, and the relationship between mind & money.
Any feedback is warmly welcomed.
Cheers!
Michael
Hi Peter!
Welcome to the challenge. I checked out your site and it looks great! Best of luck in your endeavors!
Laura Beth
Thank you Laura!
I’ve checked out your blog as well and loved it! Let’s stay in touch :-)! Do you have any beginner tips for a Yakezie Challenge newbie? For some reason my U.S. Alexa Rank is not showing either. It’s only showing the Global Rank. Any idea what that could be all about?
Anyways, nice to “virtually” meet you and good luck to you as well! :-)
Peter
Hi!
I am extremely excited to become a part of the Yakezie community! As a avid financial blog post reader and blogger, I ran into an article explaining the Yakezie Challenge and decided to join immediately. Can’t wait to grow as everyone else has been growing.
My blog is called http://www.howtoliveintheus.com. I talk about investing, business growth, personal finance, tax advantages, frugality and much more.
My current Glob Alexa rank is 4,777,829. For some reason it is not showing my U.S. ranking. Regardless, I am super excited and motivated to grow in these next 6 months and beyond. Nice to “virtually” meet some of the members!
Cheers,
Peter
http://www.howtoliveintheus.com
Hi Steve,
Welcome to the challenge. And best of luck to you.
Laura Beth
Alright, I’m in for the challenge. I just checked my Alexa worldwide ranking am I am starting at 4,753,384 (US is 773,076). I currently have 25 sites linking in.
I installed the Alexa toolbar and put the Yakezie Challenger Badge on my blog.
Thanks for the opportunity to participate!
Welcome to the challenge! I noticed your ranking is now down to 2.9 million, keep up the good work!
Welcome, Steve!
Hey Steve,
Hope you progress bud!
It’s been slightly over a month since I joined the challenge, and my Alexa ranking has increased from the initial 22,946,875 to 3,430,790 after one month! I just published a post summarizing my progress on my first month into the challenge with some site metrics and goals for this month. I’m excited!
Hi Charlie,
That’s amazing! I am so happy for you!! I just did the same thing yesterday. I posted my stats on the site. Consistent effort sure pays off.
Great minds think alike. Heading over to check out your site now.
Keep rockin my friend!
Laura Beth
Alright I just bit and installed the toolbar. I had read about this months ago but read so many other articles that said it wasnt accurate so I never bothered. What the heck, ill give it a shot and see what happens.
My first month for Cash Flow Diaries was June 2015. So today actually is right about my blogs 3 month old birthday.
As of today, the alexa global ranking says its 772,192. Ill check it again in a month and see what happens.
I have already been working really hard to promote the blog so I dont know if I can do any better. Im just going to keep doing what Im doing and see what happens.
@Alexander: Congrats! That’s a very impressive rank after 3 months!
Thanks John! I appreciate that. Okay update. 1 week later. Went from 772,192 to 610,402. Not too shabby!
Hi John,
Welcome to the Challenge!
I was right where you are about 3 weeks ago, at 22,000,000. Now I am at 1,800,000.
I checked out your site and it looks great! Let me know if I can do anything to help.
Laura Beth
@Laura: Thanks so much!
John
My global rank is 22,034,090
Hi Yakezie,
Another update.
You may recall a couple weeks ago I was at about 22,000,000. My current ranking has improved considerably. I’m now at about 7,500,000.
Laura Beth
Nice progress Laura and thanks for visiting my blog!
Actually I also saw pretty significant improvement in my Alexa ranking since I started the challenge two weeks ago – now I am at 5,758,216, compared to >22,000,000 two weeks ago. I am excited!
Charlie
Hi Charlie!
Welcome to the challenge. I visited your blog and it looks great.
Laura Beth
I joined the challenge last week! My ranking now is more than 22,000,000… Way to go!
Hi Yakezie,
I just wanted to report back. It’s been about a week since I joined the challenge. I installed the toolbar, wrote a blog post about the challenge, and began reaching out to other bloggers.
When I started the challenge a week ago, I was at 22,311,183 globally. Today I am at (don’t laugh) 12,595,125 – a huge jump of about 10,000,000. I basically went from virtual obscurity to obscurity in a week. That’s not too bad. I am happy.
In other news — I’ve also had my first guest post at “A More Successful You”, run by Erik, also in the challenge. A couple other bloggers have helped me by providing much needed feedback: GenYFinanceGuy (woot!) and Jake from iheartbudgets.net.
A week ago, I had 3 inbound links. I’ve been commenting on other blogs pretty regularly and although most of those links haven’t been picked up by Alexa, a couple have, including Alltop. So I’m now at a whopping 6 inbound links. I’m also now offering guest posting at my site, so if anyone is interested, let me know!
More to come…
Thanks everyone.
Hello, I would join the challenge!
I am excited to be a part of the group! As a subscriber of iHeartBudgets.net, Jake suggested I head over to Yakezie, and I see he was right.
My site is How To Get Rich Slowly. I just started the blog last month. My current Alexa rank is 22,311,183.
Thank you!
Laura Beth
Just joined the challenge! I had been around 6,000,000 2 months ago but haven’t been posting that much lately. I now at 19,000,000 so I have some work to do!
Great! Report back in 6 months and let us know how it goes!
Hi, we would like to join the challenge! Our site is simplethriftyliving.com and our current Alexa rank is 206,915. Looking forward to meeting everyone!
Rank 1,021,058!
Hey Sam,
I just stumbled upon this and then I find out you are the organizer, this look like an awesome thing to be a part of, I’m a little confused as to how I can start the challenge. I just created an account, what else should I do? I WANT IN!!!
Warren
I have joined the challenge and put up the banner. I am about to write a post as well. I look forward to seeing what happens.
I just joined the challenge today! Very excited to improve my global ranking of 5,398,239.
Thank you!
Good luck!
Good luck Eric and welcome to the challenge!
I am joining the Yakezie challenge. My current Alexa rating is 26,214,230. Got a long way to go to get it under 200,000.
Cheers!
Thanks for all the great tips Sam.
I just joined the Yakezie Challenge today. I’m excited to see how improve this next 6 months. My Alexa ranking is only at 4,622,433 right now so it can only get better!
Come check out my blog about the Yakezie Challenge:
Thanks!
I wish I would have known about this a few months back when I started my own personal Alexa challenge! In March of 2014 my global rank was a sad 2.3 million. I improved that drastically in less than 30 days and posted about it here: . Today my rank is 144,616 globally and 30,883 for the US. It has been consistently improving. However, I have not been able to do anything about my Google PR. I am hoping I stumble onto a challenge for that here, too! Seriously though, I look forward to participating in this community. Thanks!
I would like to know if I can join the challenge with a lifestyle blog – as yet it does not have a strong personal finance element, but it is a non- 9-5 lifestyle
Did I forget to post when I joined???
Well, I posted the badge and announcement to my site July 5th.
I forget where I started but today’s (7/24/2014) is:
Alexa Traffic Rank for moneydiva.com
Global 1,783,171
United States 177,806
Will have to work on getting that down.
Thanks for the encouragement – if you can do it so can I!
I am rejoining this challenge. I originally joined on June 15th as The Budgets and The Bees, but have since had to rename my site.
I’ve enjoyed this challenge over the past month and definitely want to keep it going. My Alexa rating is now 5,259,046. Ouch.
I’m ready to join the challenge. My global ranking is 2,793,234. I’m excited to see that number fall and I look forward to the 6 month challenge!
As an Australian blogger I worry it’ll be a little harder to make connections than for those in the US, but definitely up for the challenge!
Ooops, forgot to mention my ranking! #10,925,857 globally.
Oh dear! 5,072,016. I have quite hole to dig out of, but this seems like a fun challenge and I’m up for it.
Bout time I join this party and challenge! Current Alexa worldwide is 737,437
Just started my blog bout a month ago.
I announced the challenge on my current blog post and installed the alexa and yakezie badge!
Happy to join this wonderful network of very helpful and kind bloggers.
Good Day and Grind On!
Hey everyone! I am officially joining the challenge. My current Alexa ranking is 1,514,925 (133,663 US). Let’s go!!!
Started the Finance for Funsies blog a month ago, and just now got a rank with Alexa. Starting at 2,079,015 I have a ways to go, but i’m excited to watch the number fall everyday for the next 6 months.
#17,555,272! Ready to get started and contribute some valuable content. Always open for suggestions and look forward to reading your blogs and learning from each other!
I’ve been blogging since December 2013 and my Alexa rank on my .blogspot site was starting to drop rather quickly, but I’ve just got started with own domain last week. My current raking is 2,927,778. Thanks for letting me join the challenge!
Update: I just broke the 200,000 mark! I’m now at about 194k. :)
Hey all,
Just joined today and put a badge on my site. My Alexa rating is 351,876. I’ll announce in my next post next week.
Been blogging since mid March, so about 2 months.
Hi everyone! My Alexa rankings are: Global – 596,199 US – 110,637. I’m ridiculously competitive, so this should be good for me:-)
Well, I passed the 100,000 mark yesterday! Today, my global ranking is 98,631 and US is 13,893. Yipee!
Alexa Ranking: 1,943,356 Global and 248,001 USA, also thanks to journeytosaving.com for the advice and encouragement.
I wanted to give a quick update because of the progress I have made so far, I’m no longer a Yakezie Millionaire.
Today’s Alexa Ranking: 970,997 Global and 103,031 USA
Good Morning Financial Samurai! It has been less than 3 months and I have reached my goal of being under 200,000, with a 186,860. Thank you for the Yakezie challenge, before my 6 month anniversary is up, my new goal is 99,999. Because like Jay-Z said, I’ve got 99,999 problems and my blog ain’t one.
I think it’s time I joined this great network of bloggers!
My global Alexa ranking is at 110,566, and my US Alexa ranking is at 29,037. I am looking forward to connecting with everyone.
Alexa has “#norankdata” :-( Just started blogging so have a very long way to break into the top 200,000 but I’ve always liked a good challenge! Will up my blog posts from once a week to 2x a week.
The banner is on the site, Alexa is installed, and my rank now is 4,132,953. 200,000 and forum here I come!
I’m officially throwing my hat into the ring! Here’s my starting number: 807,821.
Cheers, friends!
@cashville skyline – great! We also just started yesterday and everyone’s been so welcoming so far! Looks like we have our work cut out for us but it should be fun. Cheers!
We’re gonna start today :-)
We have a ways to go!
Alexa score: 13,168,605 (yikes!)
I just announced on my blog that I’m participating in accomplishing the Yakezie Challenge. Wish me luck! Thanks!
I’ll throw down the gauntlet.
Current Alexa Rank:
611,762 (Global)
85,460 (US)
I am based in the UK, hopefully there is no issue with that :)
Already got the challenge badge up and will post an announcement later in the week.
theFIREstarter
https://thefirestarter.co.uk
Cheers!
Congrats! Fun stuff yeah?
This is exactly what I needed! Looking forward to the challenge. Current rankings are:
Global: 2,278,378
US: 363,508
I’m looking at you 200,000!
Well, I just officially started my pf blog today, so I actually have no rank on Alexa. Yikes! I have a lot of work to do in the next 6 months, but I am ramped up and ready for the challenge. I look forward to working with and getting to know all of you.
I’m joining the challenge today! Current Alexa rank is 2,116,869. Looks like I’ve got a ways to go to get under 200,000! I’m looking forward to the challenge!
I’m joining the challenge today! Our current rank is: 317,791. Looking forward to breaking 200k.
I’m joining the challenge as well! Our current rank is: 6,621,617
Would love to get some feedback and collab ideas for all you PF bloggers out there!
Excited to start the challenge! We have been working hard at developing our site so it would be worthy of Yakezie. :) Here’s to a good six months and hopefully becoming part of the community!
Our current Alexa rating: 262,032
I’m starting the challenge! I started the blog just over two months ago, and I need to try and get some traction.
My current ranking is 2,653,331. Yikes, I’ve got a ways to go.
I have joined the challenge. Hoping to do some good for my site. I love a challenge. My rank as of now is an abysmal 12,190,625. It is only lower from here.
Congrats! Check out the application page for the most recent class so you know what to expect for the beginning of 2014.
Hope all Challengers can take a look at this: https://yakezie.com/204782/featured/yakezie-membership-application-form-2h2013/
Please share with your fellow Challengers too. Thx
My Alexa global rank is 234224.I am determined to successfully complete this challenge in 6 months and make some great friends along the way!
Hello,
I may not have submitted my post properly earlier this week, so I’m giving it another try. I’d like to join the challenge and my Alexa ranking today is 232,667. I’m looking forward to meeting other bloggers and growing as a writer.
Thanks!
Please count me, I wanna join the challenge and my blog was launched on 10th June 2013 and currently ranked at 265,000 Alexa. I want to improve it more as it is tough from here to improve. So I want help from community and make new friends to grow, share and learn together and have fun too !
Count me in. My dailymoneybucket.com blog was launched in June 2013 and is currently ranked 1,145,531.
Looking forward to the challenge and getting to know everyone here.
I’m excited to join the challenge. The current rank for is 3,445,689. BTW, my badge is installed.
I’m joining! My post will go up tomorrow. I can’t install the alexa toolbar on this computer because I’m on IE 10. I’ll try on my Mac when I get home. My current ranking is 3,393,574. I’ve been blogging for nearly 2 months and I started at 9,273,387. I’d call that progress!
My current ranking is 402,169. I’m always up for a challenge and this is just one more thing to keep me motivated and posting frequently. Over the last month I’ve been making it a habit of posting weekly goals so this will be great to incorporate into that post.
16,281,480 — is that bad? ;)
Game on — this is a perfect combination with my current mastermind group to give me the perfect amount of motivation and accountability.
Thanks!
I’m going to start the challenge soon! Beginning at around 5 million on Alexa. I have a ways to go!
We’re on board for the challenge. Our rank is 15,295,389 – we have so much work to do! I just registered it though so maybe it’ll get better?
What? You beat me?
Global Rank 8,041,111
No data for in country…
I’ve got some work to do!
Good Luck all – this is a great way to find and get to know my fellow finance/investing bloggers – thanks!
Hey everyone, We are hopping on this train as well. Started MoneyandPotatoes.com a little over a month ago. Our current Alexa rank is #1,711,222 globally and #196,968. Excited to join the challenge and get to meet and know everyone here!
I’d love to get in on this. Currently, debtblag.blogspot.com is at #2,200,923 worldwide and #164,004 in the US. Looks like I’ve got lots of work to do :)
Hello all, I joined this challenge about 2 month ago and I’m at 779,000 worldwide and 68,000 USA. Are we shooting for 200,000 worldwide or US?
My current Alexa ranking is 942,210. Good luck to everyone participating!
Just joined the challenge. Ranked 4,158,966. Let’s get started!
I’ve been following Yakezie and I’m really excited with the idea of joining a blog network full of like-minded people.
Just finalized the aesthetics of my site and will be able to focus on the content now.
Joined the challenge just a moment ago and I believe it will motivate me to write more frequently and produce good content for the people out there.
No ranking yet. Will work hard. =D
Considering joining the network once again. I was in this network a few years ago under another blog name. Not that I have more time now, but I do have a desire to have a presence on the web in the personal finance arena.
May I ask what happened with your other blog?
I joined the challenge yesterday. Current rank 182,451 at . Looking forward to having some fun.
Joining challenge now. Been blogging for 1 week, Alexa ranking 3,636,072 — US ranking 285,670.
Hello! I’m entering my site, It’s Economic, into the Challenge. My current Alexa rank is 55,884 and my announcement post will be going up tomorrow. I put the badge up yesterday and am very excited to start the Challenge! Can’t wait!
Hello. I’m entering my site, VisualFin, into the challenge. I’m currently sitting at 1,540,000 after two weeks of blogging. My announcement post will be going up tomorrow.
My former site was in the challenge, but someone offered me enough money to part ways with it. I’ve seen the wonderful things being a member of the challenge can do when you stay active in the community. I’m excited to give it another shot.
Wayne – Welcome to the Challenge again. How do you prevent yourself from not selling your site again before the Challenge is up? What was your sold site?
There’s a price for everything so that’s neat you sold and profited too.
That’s a good question Sam – one that I’ve asked myself before. It was easier to part with my first site because it was exactly that – my first site. I consider it a very valuable learning experience. I’ve been able to accomplish in weeks what it took me months to do before. I liked the idea of starting fresh and implementing all of my newly discovered knowledge of blogging.
Much like gambling, I like the idea of playing with house money. I didn’t invest a lot of capital into my last site, so I was able to sell for many times over what I put in. Now that I’ve profited, I’ll be less likely to sell again.
Once all of the transfers are finalized, I’ll be announcing the sell and the process at VisualFin.
I’ll be joining in as well! I’m brand new to blogging but am excited to do this challenge. Thanks Sam for continuing to publish great content!
I’m around 700,000 worldwide in just over a month! Probably because so many bloggers have the Alexa Toolbar installed, and more than likely because of this post. Thanks!
Thank you for the opportunity to participate!
I have added the Yakezie Challenge badge to my site (Retirement Planning HQ) and have created a post accepting the challenge:
My website has been active for just over a week and has an Alexa rank of 3,076,654.
All the best,
…Tim
This is a serious challenge and I am going to try it again. I had a previous blog and decided to close it because of the lack of views. Now my hubby and I are running our company and I thought having a blog would be great for our company because our services are geared around career advice, financing, small business mentoring, etc. Our Alexa ranking is 17,774,391. We just started and only have five posts. I am going to diligently post everyday, quality content and hope folks will check it out. Thanks Yakezie for the great tips and challenge.
I just joined the Challenge and installed the status bar, however, my blog appears to have no ranking at all.
I have a rank now – 14,827,911. Hmmm. I have a ways to go, eh?
I’m joining the challenge! Current rank: 368,381 – My friend and I launched our frugal lifestyle blog less than one year ago and are going strong! Can’t wait to complete the challenge!
Great challenge. I just discovered this site. Right now, by site is in 8 million range. Let’s hope I can break the challenge.
Current Alexa ranking is 3,778,590. Six months from now I hope to break 200K!
Hi, I’ve put the Yakezie badge in Money Soldiers, my blog for quite some time now and my Alexa just keeps on dropping. When can I become an official member?
I just posted my challenge post yesterday! I’m currently at 2,787,684 after a couple of weeks of starting my blog. Looking forward to seeing what the next 6 months will bring and interacting with others.
Best.
Hi All,
I am officially joining the Yakezie challenge!
If I am reading my Alexa toolbar correctly, my current rank is a depressing 5,036,944. Oh well, got a lot of work to do!
Mike
I am officially joining the the Yakezie challenge! My current Alexa rankings are:
global – 2,122,600
US – 261,098
I’ve had my blog since 2007, but recently have decided to try to expand my readership. Thanks!
Thinking about joining the club here. I have a website (www.sjfpc.com—1,160,000alexa) and a blog alexa) adding content when I can. Tax season is approaching so I am not sure I can give all the time required. I guess I should join under my blog, where I write less technical articles, but not sure. Any thoughts on this?
Your blog makes more sense as we are a blogging network. thx
I think I did it; joined via my blog. thanks
Hi everyone. I wanted to update that my now has an Alexa rank of 319,000 and my https://frommtaxes.wordpress.com has a rank of 261,000. That is quite a change from last year at this time.
I wanted to join the Challenge but my problem is that I am not able to post two to three times a week. My law practice allows me to only post about once a month. So how can I be more involved with this limitation?
One question: Can Twitter have an adverse impact on Alexa rankings in that the bounce rate may increase? I cannot figure out Alexa as I have gotten a lot more traffic to my blog from my recent posts but my ranking went down about 30,000. Cannot figure this out.
Thanks for any response you may have to these issues.
Joining the Yakezie challenge today to start the new year off right. My current Alexa Rank is 552,961 for my site at wealthnote.com. I am looking forward to meeting new friends, and making a difference in the lives of others.
OK, good luck Anna! Check out the forums to get to know 30 or more folks during your six months.
Just registered at the Yakezie forum and published our challenge post! I think this is a great way not only to network, but to stay accountable with daily posts and such. Current rank is 4,204,602 globally, and 369,434 in the US. Hoping to hit 200K by April-May!
Starting with the challenge today. My alexa rank is just around 500K
Starting today. Alexa is 597.941. Want to get below 200,000 by January.
I registered on Yakezie yesterday and posted my challenge post today. I am ready for the challenge and I know it will keep me motivated. I am more excited about the networking opportunities. I think this challenge is a great way to get in touch with other successful PF bloggers. My current rank is 2,725,574 and I hope to be down below 200k by March.
There are so many familiar faces here that I’ve decided to take the challenge. After just over a month my rank is currently 1,324,202. My goal is to reach 200,000 by April fool’s day.
Good luck to all.
I’m back! I’m excited to go through the process a second time with a new niche.
I am joining officially on Monday 10/08 and will be posting on my site as such. I’ve been blogging for a month and looking forward to the challenge. My current Alexa rank is 293,812, looking forward to seeing that get below 200k.
I’m also joining, why not give myself a goal!? Good luck!
Awesome! I feel the same way. Looking forward to seeing what’s in store. Good luck to you as well.
I’m in. I’m starting from scratch with a blog that has less than a dozen posts on it. My alexa ranking is N/A. Excited to connect with you all and learn from you as we grow our blogs together!
I am joining the challenge. Current Alexa rank is 232,826. I’ve been blogging for about four months and was pleasantly surprised it’s already in the 200,000. My goal is to get below 200,000 in the next six months. Wheeee!
Welcome and good luck! Just make sure you have a lot of fun!
I just joined the challenge. Current Alexa ranking: 5,872,956. I’ve got a ways to go! I’ve enjoyed reading the blogs of other challengers, so I’m excited to join the ranks.
I just joined the Yakezie challenge. Current Alexa ranking: no rank. I suppose any improvement will be a huge improvement from that.
Just joined the challenge. Current Alexa: 754,321
Well, let’s see if I can break the 10M barrier before the end of the month. Although I’m really hoping to get below 8M before the end of the month!
I’ve got to start writing more articles.
I’m currently at 13,388,081 and my first blog post was just over 3 weeks ago.
I’m officially joining the challenge right here, right now.
I just barely launched my website, https://www.CompoundCapitalist.com, yesterday. I’m sitting pretty at an Alexa rank of 11,457,761. I definitely have a long way to go to breach the 200k mark, but I say bring it on!
I’m hoping to break 5M by the end of September, 1M by the end of November, 500k by the end of January 2013, and be in the 200k region by March of 2013.
I’m definitely excited about this network, and happy to be here.
Brandon Kasteler – Compound Capitalist
Welcome and good luck!
Thanks, Sam! I appreciate it!
I will be joining this challenge tonight, adding my website, to the mix. My site is currently sitting at 1,562,076 (after jumping from around 9.6M last month after I installed the Alexa toolbar).
My goal is to break the 1M mark by the end of September, and the 500K mark by the end of December.
-A.M.
Officially joining the Yakezie Challenge today. My current Alexa rank is 1,178,184. Goal is to get it under 200,000 by February 18th, 2013.
Installed the toolbar, badge, and added the Alexa widget to my site (making this public is a great idea, I know I will be motivated knowing that visitors to my site will see my ranking).
Heading over to the forums now.
Thanks for putting this challenge together. I think it’s the kind of motivator that can really help me bring my site to another level.
-DC @ Young Adult Money
Good to see you decided to join DC! I’ve subscribed to your blog and left a comment on your post that went up today.
Thanks! I’m really looking forward to the challenge. It should keep me focused and committed to continually improving Y.A.M.
I just joined the Yakezie Challenge! I’m ready to write some epic content :)
My Alexa ranking is currently at 871,822. I just installed the toolbar and badge and I’m going to head over to the forums right now. Let’s do some work!
-Harry @ PF Pro
About to start the Yakezie challenge! Super excited!! Current rank: 258,571!!! Looking forward to meeting new members!!!
Scratch that, I’m more of a humble 2,428,646. I have a looooooooooooong way to go ;)
Welcome to the Challenge! Check out the Yakezie Epsilon Application page to get a sense of more thoughts towards the end of the process.
Good luck!
My badge is up and I’m ready for the challenge. My current Alexa rank is 17,899,725 on my brand new blog.
I’m looking forward to joining this great community!
Finally trying to give this challenge a go.. Current Alexa rank 1,095,164..
Here’s hoping to meeting the challenge and an another reason to celebrate for 2013 New Years!!..
I joined the challenge yesterday. Current rank 825,151 at . Looking forward to meeting our goals and helping others to reach theirs!
I’m up for the challenge! and a challenge it will be….
https://moolamind.com/
Alexa Rank: 5,612,797
Special thanks to Andrea from for inviting me!
You’ll move up fast. I recall mine was something like 18,000,000 just a few months ago.
Sorry, I forgot to say that my current Alexa ranking was 623,318, and am looking forward to breaking 200,000 with the Yakezie Challenge!
Cool. You can join as a lifestyle blogger!
Hi Sam and Everyone, I just joined Yakezie and will announce the challenge on my blog (www.TravelByPoints.com) tonight. Looking forward to completing the challenge and becoming a part of this wonderful community!
Just joined the challenge and I am pumped! I have been writing consistently for 1 month and I am ready to take it to the next level. Thanks for putting together this challenge and for bringing together the personal finance community. Check out my blog at https://www.WellKeptWallet.com. I would love to hear your comments and feedback!
W00t! Signed up a few weeks ago, and I’m right at 1,000,000. Here’s to dropping to 200,000 in the next few months!
Just signed up my relatively new blog to take on the challenge! Looking forward to seeing if I can maintain the level of consistency needed to succeed. My Alexa ranking is currently “no data”. Does it take a few days before a ranking is generated? Or are sites not ranked if traffic is too low?
In any case, I’m also looking forward to meeting other members and challengers. Best of luck to you all!
After a few weeks of blogging, I’m officially joining the challenge. My Alexa ranking is currently at 2,519,000 and like many have said before me, there’s only one direction to go.
I’ve been helping investors for a decade now, but I’ve only been blogging at AllthingsFinance.net for 3 weeks. I’m looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead and the people I’ll meet along the way.
Yes! I’m excited to finally get started. My global ranking is 796,511! It’s about time I joined in on this amazing and awesome challenge.
Hello everyone, I’m now on board with the Yakezie Challenge! My Alexa ranking currently stands at: 7,528,209…..so plenty of room for improvement, but I’m always up for a challenge! I’ve been PF blogging through Objective Wealth for around 6 weeks now, and have seen the Yakezie badges quite a lot on other blogs, so I don’t want to miss out on the action! Looking forward to making great gains over the next 6 months and beyond. Thanks for having me.
Welcome! Make sure you try and get to know about 30 members and challengers in the next 6 months!
Hi Guys,
I’m sooooooo excited to be joining the challenge. My Alexa ranking is currently 4,505,843….that’s much better than my previous ranking of 15,613,649′! So I’m gaining momentum. I’m looking forward to learning a lot and making new friends. Come check me out at http://www.mytakeonmoney.com
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone. What better way to celebrate than joining the challenge. My current Alexa rank is 3,304,795. I look forward to working with all the fantastic bloggers on this site. Thank you for this opportunity.
I was going to wait until I finished this semester, but then I thought what the heck. I’m joining the Yakezie Challenge today with an Alexa score of 1,282,896. Eek!
Hooray, I just joined right now!!!
I’m not so new to blogging, but totally new to personal finance. My new blog – Woman’s Guide to Investing and Financial Freedom is actually attached to my main lifestyle blog, which is already at 131,813 with Alexa. My main goal is to get to know other bloggers and become a full fledged member of Yakezie!
I joined the challenge! My alexa ranking is currently at 3,835, 763 and I will be posting about it tomorrow morning! So excited to watch that number go down and make some great connections
Welcome to the Challenge!
Joining right now – Alexa Ranking: 584,881
Hoping less than 100,000 by the end of 6 months. If anyone is interested in swapping articles, especially about real estate — let me know!
Good luck Drew! What type of real estate are you into, and how long have you been doing it?
I joined just 3 weeks ago and already dropped my Alexa from over 1 million to under 500k, thanks for creating this challenge Sam!
I am very excited to join this challenge. Like Jai mentioned above, I knew nothing about this group until started following other PF sites back in December. I joined last Saturday with a brand new blog and an Alexa of “nothing”. Today, a week later, my Alexa is 1,633,930. That is due to everyone’s support. Thanks!
My new challenger post is
I’ve just jointed the Yakezie challenge with my personal finance blog Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses (www.momoneymohouses.com) and I’m currently sitting at Alexa global rank #3,632,067. I started my blog in mid-December 2011 so it’s still fairly new, but I’m excited to see that number not look like my parents are the only people who visit my site. I’ll have a post announcing me joining the challenge early next week.
I just joined the Yakezie challenge. My current Alexa rank is 12,133,061. So it looks like I have nowhere but up to go.
I can tell by the quality of sites on the top-100 list that you have an amazing group here, Sam. I put the Yakezie banner on my site last week, and would like to officially join the challenge with this post.
Our website is
Our Alexa rating today is 1,029,249..
Which is about half of where we were a week ago :)
Hi Sam,
We joined the Yakezie Challenge today and I’m so excited! I’ve wanted to join forever, but just now worked up the gumption to do it. Our Alexa Rank is 381,905, the badge is on, and the announcement post is up! (I included links to Yakezie and you, and quoted you; hope that’s o.k.?) I’ll be headed over to the Yakezie Challengers Forum shortly, and I can’t wait to connect with members I’ve already met and new ones as well. Thanks so much for founding this, it’s a great project! Alright, I’m done gushing:)
I joined the Yakezie Challenge today. I have had my blog live since February 5. I have learned alot so far and I am just barely touching the tip of the ice berg…I cant wait to see where I am at in 6 months…Eeeek my current alexa ranking is 20,912,107..Remember I just joined Monday so go easy on me :-)
I’m going to give this a try, although my blog is just getting off of the ground, after starting it two weeks ago. My current Alexa ranking is 13,358,157, so I have a long ways to go, but its worth a shot! My blog is at JamesPetzke.com, and it is about my journey to graduate college with a surplus instead of a debt.
After going back and forth on this, I’m going to go ahead and join the challenge.
currently has an Alexa rank of 1,721,224 and 151,636 in the US.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that my current Alexa rank is 1,974,471.
Sam,
I just made the plunge and became a proud member. I look forward to 1) writing quality content and 2) to selflessly help other blogger friends in this network.
Shilpan
6,204,728. I take it the more often you blog and participate, the lower the score gets and the lower the better? Sorry, newbie question! Already blogging a lot though and honored to join the challenge.
Yep, the better you write, and the more content you produce, and the more people you get to know, the better everything is!
I am in!!! My current Alexa rating is 4,115,670. I am excited to take part in this goal and bring another level of excitement to my blog!
I’ll throw my hat into the ring! Right now my Alexa rank is 5,028,379 :( Getting under 200,000 in 6 months might take a miracle, but I’m going for it!
I’m in. My rank right now is 15,920,114. Long way to go.
Ok I’ve joined! i guess I’ve tossed around the idea long enough. Only problem is there is no Alex toolbar for a Mac…I’ll deal manually I guess!
The Alexa toolbar is not PC or Mac related. I have a Mac.
Good luck! I know you will find the solution with Google!
Download mozilla firefox and then you can get the alexa toolbar!!
Hi there,
I’m up for the challenge. Just started my blog. Hope to be a full member in six months time.
Loving this community so far and I’m pretty sure I’ve only scratched the surface.
Current Alexa Rank: 13,158,677 so I’ve a long way to go. Wish me luck.
I’m in! I’m up for the challenge and look forward to becoming a part of this growing community.
Current Alexa Rank: 938,563
Welcome Kanwal! I’ve seen you around Twitter for a while now.
Good luck getting to know everyone!
I have decided to take the challenge. A lot of my fellow bloggers are members and they have nothing but good things to say about it. I look forward to being an active member in the community. My Alexa Rank is 5,031,011.
I’m up for the challenge and excited to become a part of this growing community! My Alexa Rank is currently: 1,231,576.
Hi everyone,
Well I feel like I’m a little late to this party, but I’m excited to join this group and meet everyone :) I’m kicking myself for not joining months ago. I just posted my intro to joining Yakezie.
Look forward to meeting lots of new people, and some familiar faces from FinCon11 as well. Feel free to drop by and say hello.
Alexa Rank 392,241
Cheers
Avrom
Question? Can my personal site (which is my personal blog) get in the challenge?
Sure Jai.
The Challenge is open to everyone!
Thanks for taking the time to get back to me. I will be coming back real soon.
I knew nothing about this months ago and had a ranking of 10 million. Hurts to even say it. I have only recently started to focus or refocus my attention on ranking and now I am 5 million. Gotta make some more changes but hey I am in the middle of the crowd now.
It all depends on when you announced you joined the Challenge on your site, and whether you’ve developed enough relationships.
Congrats on breaking 200K though!
I’m a new guy and have no ranking yet. The sound you hear is the sound of my knees knocking together.
By the way… Is there a time limit to writing a post on my blog announcing about my yakezie challenge? Thanks, again.
I did not realized that writing a post on my blog that I joined yakezie challenge is one of the requirements. I will have to post this soon. Thanks for sharing all the requirements for the yakezie challenger. It was unclear in terms of the requirements on the yakezie site so I was not sure what I needed to be doing. This is a very helpful post.
I would like to join the Yakezie Challenge. My current Alexa rank is: 361,684 world; 61,816 US. I hope to get below 200,000 within the next 6 months.
Welcome to the Challenge! With an Alexa ranking of already 361,000, shoot for sub 150,000 in 6 months!
See you around.
Working hard on it! In two weeks, my alexa score has dropped to 326,297. US is 53,522!
I’m currently at 3,519,413 … =( A pretty high number (and pretty far to go), but I’m going to get to it! (btw is this where we post so y’all can track it?)
I recently found out about the Yakezie network and I’m excited about joining.
My current Alexa ranking is:
Global: 259,191
US: 87,084
I really like what you guys are doing here. ..so I am officially in. I just launched my site at the end of July and I’m excited to gain momentum. It nice to know that there are others out there willing to reach out to newbies, network and mentor. I’m new at blogging but will do what I can to help others!
As for my rank, well personally, I’m looking forward to to even receiving a ranking. Stop by and drop me a line…I could use the company!
Just started. I have a ridiculous ranking of 15,487,000 there or there-abouts. Here’s hoping I last 6 months and get to 14,999,000 :D See you all on the other side!
I think now the challenge might be made a little bit tougher, a target of Alexa 100K would be more appropriate…what you think, Sam?
Perhaps. 200K is only the beginning. We should all have the self motivation to continue improving as much as we can.
Welcome John. You buying r selling the markets w/ the Dow back at 11,000 here?
Hi Paula, looks like you’ve really been making a move since you joined. Well done and see you on the other side! Sam
Throwing my hat into the ring here and ouch starting at #4,955,333! Have my work cut out for me. SO April first I hope its not a joke when I say Ive broken 200,000
I’d like to throw myself in the challenger ring. Currently ranked #351,832. Would love to see 100k by the six month end.
Would love to see you do it!
I have just joined the challenge and I have 7 reasons for it @ 7 Solid Reasons to Take the Yakazie Challenge:
Thanks
Update it is now #8,208,072 wooo
I just joined the Challenge and would love for all your readers to drop by my site:
I would love to add them to my blogroll and hope they can do the same for me.
Hi guys, I just joined today with #8,221,358 :( Hope I’m not too late. But I’m very excited about starting my journey here with Yakezie. Any suggestions, comments, or criticism please let me have it, I’m always strive to improve myself and what I do:)
After joining Yakezie, finally broke the 200K level in just 2 weeks. This forum is amazing.
Let’s shoot for breaking 100k and then 50k in the 6 month process. Don’t forget to help others and build relationships!
Hey all… I finally did it… I joined the challenge and I’m excited. I’m looking forward to your input, thoughts, and I’m looking forward to contributing to your development and ideas too.
Drop me a line!
It’s never to late for a PF party!! Glad I found you! I currently have no rank at all but I hope the rankings kick in soon. See you soon. Karoline
Nothing but upside indeed! How are things going?
How are things going? You still rocking it?
Jay, hope to see you around the Yakezie Forums and around the Network. Good luck!
Decided that it’s about time I signed on as well. Looking forward to becoming a part of the community!
Eric, curious to know how long you’ve been thinking about it, and what were the thoughts you’ve been thinking about before joining?
Well Sam, I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of months. To be honest, after slacking for a loooong time on blogging and then rebranding my old blog to the current version, it’s only been about a month. I really wasn’t sure if I was worthy of joining, especially considering who is part of the community, but I figured why not do it so I can learn from the best
I’m going to give it a go and see what happens. Currently ranked 58,227. Not sure what results I can expect, but let’s say 40,000 by the end of the year???
Welcome to the Challenge FMF! 40,000 is a great goal by year end! It’s pretty tough since you are already so low already, but why not! It will be great to have you as a Member come Jan 2012. I’m sure many PF bloggers know who you are already, but I’m sure there are plenty more out there just discovering your site as well.
See you around the sphere and in the forums! It’s a great place to leverage.
What a great idea. I’m really excited to start the Yakezie Challenge. Currently I’m ranked 9,637,051 and I’m pretty sure that you break the top 10 M by simply being alive. I know there a huge amount of great talent out there and I’m looking forward to meeting and getting to know the community.
Iain – Yep, exist and one should be in the top 10 m :) Let’s get you under 200K! See you around.
Just getting started on the challenge. My current Alexa Rank is 872127 for my Write and Get Paid blog– which was created to share my knowledge about how to make a living by writing. I also write about finance for MyBankTracker. I am always interested in meeting other bloggers and helping each other meet goals we have set.
Hi Denise, it’s a great topic that naturally fits with all of us bloggers. I look forward to reading some of your advice on how to make a living as a writer!
I am excited to start the Yakezie Challenge. Currently, my Alexa Rank is 5,642,857. I look forward to meet new Personal Finance bloggers in the community. If anyone would like to introduce themselves, feel free to contact me as I am excited to meet new bloggers and help others promote their sites.
I look forward to your involvement! I’ve seen you around Yakezie.com. Good luck and have fun!
Thanks! I’m new to the forum and a little lost with all the layers. Any advice? :)
Yep, methodically break down the layers. Everything good takes work! It’s just about building relationships and staying consistent with your site and help others succeed.
I just started …but am geared up….. My Lexa rank is 11,456,796…. planning to bring this down sooner than later…
I am in too. 3,916,890….only one way to go
Count me in! Better late than never… I’m starting at 1,425,850. Nowhere to go but up!
You’ve been doing great over the past 3 months. Keep up the good work!
Is a mortgage-related site eligible for the challenge?
If it’s your personal blog. You’ve got to make a choice and see what type of relationships you’ll be able to build in the next 6 months.
Hi,
I am ranked 7,606,412.
Thanks!
Sweet, sounds like a good place to increase ranking! Of course, Alexa only tracks ranking for those that have the toolbar installed, correct? So it doesn’t measure the traffic perfectly?
Hi there! I’m really looking forward to this challenge. As of today, my Alexa rank is 1,346,605. I can’t wait til that number has fewer commas in it!
Babybluewater
Welcome! Straight to the top, I like it!
I’m joining the challenge! My current Alexa rank is #2,703,660, but I’m looking forward to getting in the top 200,000! See you all there!
Starting the challenge! Current Alexa rank of 2,017,539. Hopefully this challenge will help pull my site up into the top 200,000 in Alexa. That would be great!
I’m joining the challenge with an Alexa score of 1,671,450, so I too have a ways to go! I’m looking forward to the challenge with my blog about being a working mom at https://www.theultimatejuggle.com So here we go!!
I am joining the challenge! My blog is at https://www.moneyinthe20s.com I am starting with a ranking of 8,007,006. I have a long way to go, but this will definitely be a great motivation for me! I look forward to learning from all of the others participating.
Sounds good Dave. Visit the Yakezie Forums and introduce yourself. Good luck and hope to have you rocket to the top in 6 moths!
I’m ready to start the challenge!
My current Alexa rank is 273,454.
I posted about it here . I’ll be heading over to the forum now …
Late to the game, but ready to win! Starting at 1,290,448 and inconsistent posting schedule, which ends today! Good luck to all participating!
Welcome to the Challenge! Look forward to seeing you around for sure. Love your blog’s name! Cheers
Congrats on making it man! It is great that you have joined mate. Looking forward to reading your Member Post!
https://yakezie.com/10181/personal-finance/welcome-yakezie-beta-class
I joined the Yakezie challenge today and currently sit at 8,726,187 which means I have a long way to go, but i’m up for the challenge you can see my post about the challenge at http://www.mmanit.wordpress.com the name of the blog is I’m Not Sure. looking forward to reading and learning along the way. Making some friends and being part of a community of people with like minded goals and topics.
Very excited to start this process.
Welcome Tina! You may want to consider buying a URL domain name. It helps with the audience and with potential future partners if and when you grow!
Cheers
I just joined the challenge, but have to admit I am still a little confused. Perhaps some who have gone through it could shed more light on it.
Also, I would love to swap guest posts. if you might be interested, head on over to my blog and check it out – https://www.thesinglesaver.com
The Single Saver
What things are you confused about? Cheers.
I’ll join too – my current ranks is just shy of 6 million – got plenty of work to do! Might bring the fun back into SEO!
I joined the Yakezie challenge today and introduced myself on the forum. My question is where do I find the articles of the other Yakezie members/challengers to be able to promote them. I see creditcardchasers has a spot on their site with a list, but is there anything else?
We’ve got a great site at Yakezie.com. Take a look at the top right hand side of the home page. Thx
Seldom am I IMPRESSED. To tweet this is not doing it justice. Though I think the greater focus should be on your sales conversions regardless of your alexa rankings. I do respect the detail you provided to bloggers around the world. I am going to email you.
Darren, did you ever e-mail me mate? Are you impressed?
The Alexa Ranking is just a barometer. What’s more important are the relationships we will build and have built within the Yakezie Network.
Thanks
I sure did the same night. I take it you forgot all about me LOL
I just resent to your gmail.
I love the Yakezie mission. I’m in. Myself and Power Spending co-authors are joining the challenge. Creating a blog section of our site today.
Current alexa: 655,630.
200,000… here we come!
Eric, sounds good man. I really appreciate your insight and comments here and on Yakezie.com so far. Feel free to utilize the Yakezie Forums for further networking and more info!
I just joined today! We’ve got a long way to go 11, 650, 860 is our starting point. Nowhere to go from here but up!
Good stuff LaTisha. I’ve been seeing you around Yakezie.com with your comments! The Yakezie Forums is a great way to interact with others, so please feel free to spend time there too.
Cheers
Eventually, I am not working with Alexa because the competitions are high there. I have my own blog, which is ranking good in Google but I have seen it’s also in good positions in Alexa. I have never thought so much about it. But, I obliged to tell you that after reading this article, I would like to start optimizations via Amazon. Thanks for the inspirations.
Hey I’d like to join! Current rank 7,307,986. Been blogging since July ’10 but made a clean start with a new domain at the end of December. I’ve been checking out tons of other blogs, so cool! I had no idea there was this whole community of PF bloggers out there!
I’m late to the party and far behind! Anyway I’m at #4,593,526.
Let’s just say there’s room for improvement :)
Just wondering, should I move from Blogger to my own domain?
I definitely recommend you go on WordPress and get your own URL if you want in for the long term for great glory! :)
Thanks for the advice Sam. I did the first (easiest) step and got a URL.
Just shopping around for a host. Have been recommended Fat Cow, Blue Host, Hostgator, Stablehost and Dreamhost. But then when I google for complaints there seem to be loads of complaints for all. So confusing! Your thoughts?
Yikes. I have a ways to go, but ever optimistic. I joined a while ago, but got pulled away. Committing NOW to 6 months of blogging, helping others. Can’t list my rank here until it gets better. ;-)
Come visit me at http://www.upsideofmoney.com or on Twitter (@upsideofmoney) and let me get to know you as well (leave a comment, tweet, what have you).
Should have added that my current rank is 1,255,607
Happy to be part of the challenge at my blog.
Joining in today from 6,945,180. Ramping up my focus on content and building relationships should get be to 200k in the new few months.
Well, I just ran across this site and post and felt like it would be a good idea to join the challenge since I am wanting to increase my Alexa rank. I was hoping that I could get in the top 500,000 by the end of 2010 but that didn’t happen. Now as part of the Yakezie challenge, I am striving to move from a rank of 648,006 to be in the top 200,000 by the 1st of July 2011. Wish me luck and thanks for the inspiration.
Hi Kidgas,
Welcome to the Challenge! The most important part is getting to know your fellow Challengers and future Members. Introduce yourself in the Yakezie.com forums is a great first step. Cheers, Sam
I’m in. Current rank is 998,110!
Why didn’t I join sooner? :)
Yay, I’m so excited to join the Challenge! I just started my blog last month. I didn’t know what my focus would be until I found this place. Current rank is 14,093,680.
Welcome, and come introduce yourself in the Yakezie forums on Yakezie.com! Also, today is the last day for the Scholarship voting, so please come vote and share your support for the kids!
https://yakezie.com/forums
Great post! I wish I had started my personal finance blog sooner so that I could have participated! Oh well, I guess its better late than never — will get there on my own eventually, but this post has given a lot of inspiration.
If everyone commenting here visited each others website, there would be huge growth in Alexa rankings!
I finally got around to joining — should have done this long ago. Current rank is 1,772,811. As you say, nothing but upside potential!
Matt, don’t forget to sign up for the Beta Class https://yakezie.com/10181/personal-finance/welcome-yakezie-beta-class
Also, looking forward to reading your new book!
Sam, I haven’t quite cracked the top 200,000 yet. I started at 1.7 million in December and am now at 400,000, so I’m moving up quickly, but I’m not there yet. So, I assume that means I should wait before signing up for the Beta Class. Is that right? One of the application questions asks when you broke through the 200,000 barrier. Please advise. Thanks!
Hmmm, tough one. If you have been actively interacting with the other Members, linking back to them with wrap posts, commenting on their blogs and such, you should be able to crack 200,000.
Give it a final 1-2 month push! Should help with your book too.
Today’s Alexa Traffic Rank is 2,402,110 as of December 5, 2010. I’m in. Love the concept!
Here we go! We just launched our blog over the weekend with 7 articles. I have now gotten my (woeful) Alexa rank – over 23 million! Time to pull those socks up. I have the Yakezie icon on the site now and i’ll write a post tonight. Glad to be on board! (just need to figure out why I can’t create an account – the verification keeps failing for me)
Fixed now – thanks for the super fast response!
Okay, so I’ve tried to register for the forums 9 different times now. Every time I do it says that I’m entering the Image Validation in correctly. There is no way that I am – 9 times. So I don’t know what to do. =(
I have also had the same problem, so you’re not the only one.
Well up for it! You can count me in too!
Fantastic idea. Count me in!
I’m in. I’m making my announcement on my blog tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be a challenge to grow from 13,268,504 to under 600,000 in six months, but I’ll see what happens.
Romeo
Romeo, you’ve come a long way since November 13th. We’re going to get your Member Post up in April or in the Gamma Class!
Thanks, I’m doing my best by writing for fun. You have made blogging more interesting, though, Sam. I really appreciate the extra motivation by which this challenge produces. I wish I were more involved with Yakezie; I will after the book and grad school is complete in May, trust me.
I’m totally in. What a fantastic idea. =)
I write mostly bank reviews about CD Rates. I occasionally will impart some “wisdom” on the economy. Does the site in my sigline qualify? Let me know. I’ve visited some of your blogs over the years and commented.
cd :O)
I’m joining the challenge today. Gotta get to at least 200,000 in 6 months. I’m starting at 1,790,984.
This takes me back. When we first started out 6 years ago we installed the Alexa Tool Bar and very quickly it almost took over our lives. Desperate to get into the top 100,000 we threw everthing at it we finally manage to get to about 98,000 but then as nothing really changed when we got there, we kinda just lost interest and gave up worrying about it.
However, I might start watching it again as a bit of fun.
Thanks for injecting a bit of fun back into this sometimes tedious occupation!
Hi Everyone (and Sam),
I love the idea of the challenge and accept, if you’ll have me. I’m more on the travel lifestyle side of blogging but have started talking about the money side of my site/lifestyle more
My current alexa ranking is 134,020 and this is perfect motivation I need to help me make the push below the 100,000 mark.
Looking forward to meeting the community here.
Cheers,
Todd
Hey Todd! Good to hear from you mate. We’d love to have new Lifestyle Bloggers as part of the mix. Welcome to the Challenge! Feel free to introduce yourself in the Yakezie Public Forums to your fellow Challengers! https://yakezie.com/forums/yakezie-reader-insights/yakezie-challengers-forum
Looking forward to seeing you around.
Best, Sam
Hey Sam, great! I remember you telling me about this earlier when I was just getting started earlier this year. Great to be a part of this group and I’ll introduce myself and the challenge this week.
Cheers,
Todd
I can’t remember when Control Your Cash joined the challenge – certainly within the last 6 months – and right now we’re sitting at a tantalizingly close #202,489.
Nice. Feel free to upload your Member Post after your 6 month period, and we’ll put it up!
I announced my joining of the challenge 2 weeks ago on my blog ) and have just finished all the steps to get started. I have been following many of the challengers for the past few months and I am so excited to be able to connect and share with everyone! My current Alexa ranking is 53,244
Hello all! Modern Tightwad is joining on the Yakezie Challenge (I’m always last to the party). My alexa rank is 1,537,024. I’m very much looking forward to working and visiting with everyone. I’ve been writing on Modern Tightwad for a little over a year now, but am excited to actually start working on the blog. We need your anti-burnout support! :)
Don’t forget to sign up! https://yakezie.com/10181/personal-finance/welcome-yakezie-beta-class
I just started my blog last week and right now I am at “no rank.”
Is there any other way to start a challenge?
I just put Yakezie badge on my blog. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about personal finance and blogging for me.
I am extremely late to the party but I’d still like to join if you’ll still have me. My blog ranking is 981,046.
Hello everyone!
WE – https://www.YourSmartMoneyMoves.com – have officially joined the Yakezie Challenge as of today! Our current Alexa rank is 202.397. We look forward to meeting, interacting, sharing and growing with all of you!
Sincerely,
Ted Jenkin, CFP®,
AWMA®, CRPC®, AAMS®, CMFC®, CRPS®
Co-CEO and Founder oXYGen Financial, Inc. & YourSmartMoneyMoves.com
I am in as of today. My rank is #342,592. Looking forward to networking with some fellow pf bloggers!
Welcome John! Come introduce yourself in the Yakezie Forums to your fellow Challengers! https://yakezie.com/forums/yakezie-reader-insights
Thanks for starting this challenge. This is great motivation for me, and I’m sure for lots of other people. My current rank is #10,374,175. With a little hard work, I’m sure I can get that below #200,000 in six months.
Wish me luck everyone!
No problem man. That’s a great video you did. Who sang??
That was me singing. Took me a whole weekend of audio editing to take it from awful to acceptable. :)
Very well done! I can’t hit those high notes, and therefore stay in baritone :)
https://cdn.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/5stringserenadessamuraiFINAL1.mp3
Really need a push to get me out of my comfort zone and i believe this challenge will do. Have been watching it for a while but i finally gave myself the needed push to join. Am in and as of today my Alexa ranking is 7,802,396 and my Yakezie badge has been installed. I’ll do a post soon on my blog
I know i have a lot of work to do but am really excited to be part of this.
Sounds great! I’m sure you will do well if you try over the next 6 months. Feel free to introduce yourself to your fellow challengers!
https://yakezie.com/forums/yakezie-reader-insights/yakezie-challengers-forum
I am very excited to join the Yakezie Challenge. I think I am the only blogger from the UK.
As of today my ranking is 1,440,340 and I am sure we can do better than that.
Onwards and upwards!
Viviana, how are things going? Haven’t seen you around recently.
Hi,
Here’s an update from us.
We’re continuing to move up the rankings and are now at position 1,758,000. Obviously still a long, long way to go but at least we’re headed in the right direction. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our site.
Just took the decision to join the Yakezie challenge with 3 of my blogs.
Since I have never considered Alexa ranking, this will be a great challenge!
Here are my numbers as of today:
The Financial Blogger: 163,498
The Dividend Guy Blog: 256,261
Green Panda Treehouse: 263,187
I definitely have a lot of work in front of me!
Thx Sam for putting us up for a great challenge!
Welcome Mike! That’s a lot of blogs! That would be great if you breached 150,000 or 100,000 on all three! I’m sure current Members and Challengers would really appreciate your blogging business insights.
Good to hear your story on the Public Forums! https://yakezie.com/forums
Yay.. I have been watching this for a while reluctantly to join. I wasn’t sure if I could keep up the blogging religiously but I have did it for the last few months. So, I am ready to commit. Publicly. I will still have to work out the badge in the right place on my site.. Alexa 3,517,029
Welcome to the Challenge! We know you can do it! Feel free to put the badge up on the right column.
Joining the Yakezie Challenge today! Count me in! My current Alexa Rank is 1,024,884.
Frugal Guy, how’s it going man? Did you survive the Challenge to Join the Beta Class?
https://yakezie.com/10181/personal-finance/welcome-yakezie-beta-class
I learned about this recently and think its a great idea! Count me in1
As of today my Alexa Rank is 4,758,048 and while I have a way to go I have been seeing a steady increase in traffic. While my blog isn’t directly a PF blog it is what I would call a tech/productivity lifestyle blog.
What better way to make money than by becoming more efficient and effective!
I look forward to interacting with the network and showing and receiving some “link love” while we share our ideas.
I just started my personal finance blog last month and I am really interested to reach that 200,000 Alexa ranking goal. I think this challenge will really help me. Count me is as well. As of 9/5/2010, my Alexa ranking is at 5,888,869.
Count me in for the challenge! Starting at 1,091,440 Alexa ranking. Announcement will be on the blog on Tuesday.
All roads seem to lead me back to this site! You have done well on promoting the Yakezie challenge. We are just under 200k, as of yesterday was at 185k but our goal is to be well under 100k by the beginning of the year (2011). I know its possible with the pointers you have given! Thanks
Hi,
I also decided to join the challenge. Alexa 3 months rank 2,368,510. My post and the badge should be up tomorrow in my weekend’s edition.
just an added thought on Alexa – last fall i had the opportunity to attend a google hosted forum for adsense earners in california. the consistent message i heard was that alexa gives you the “rank” of the website or blog within the realm of keywords that it targets. many still think that a rank of 200,000 means their site is the 200,000th ranked site out of the millions online. however, the 200k represents the rank within that website’s niche only. that said, webmasters did mention that achieving ranks under 300k is a solid accomplishment and usually means the site is making a healthy income (if monetized appropriately)
looking forward to participating in the challenge down the road.
Those are interesting thoughts Sunil. Basically the goal is to compete in a challenge (Alexa) which has an algorithm that bakes in many variables. There is a correlation to traffic and page rank and all that stuff the lower your ranking goes. Look forward to seeing you around consistently in the network and reaching your goal!
Hi, I just joined the challenge! Starting at Alexa rank 897,809. My post
Sounds good Tim. Welcome! Love your site’s name. See you around the community!
Hi, I just installed the badge and I’m not quite sure… Maybe I missed above. This is still on-going, right?
I joined the challenge today. I’m at 2,012,515 in Alexa. Woo hoo!
Welcome Jerret! Nice picture of your baby! 2 million means nothing but upside!
Joining the challenge today. I’m at 487k in Alexa.
Welcome Moneyedup! Looking forward to seeing you around the community!
I have tried the 3 blog posts a week strategy on my own private blog yet it still never gets me more visitors! I think blog post titles have a lot to do with people finding your blog and my blog posts must just not be interesting enough!
Thanks again for stopping by my site, Sam!
I thought about joining a while back but didn’t. I did start following the suggestions though and bumped up my Alexa ranking a good bit. But I’m officially joining now, and my Alexa ranking is at 225,269 today. I’ll announce it on my site this Friday!
I am in. I should have joined sooner but didn’t. Starting point 761,131
Sounds great bsimple! Welcome to the challenge! I think you’re going to find it a great experience and meet a lot of great people. Going to write an updatee on Yakezie.com on Wed, Aug 18th so stay tuned. In the meantime, hope to see you around the network and building relationships!
Hey bsimple. Nice to see you here. I just joined too.
I don’t know why I didn’t join earlier.
Anyway, here I go…
Starting #1,115,170.
Count us in!
Welcome guys! How are things going?
How can I get included with the Yakezie Carnivals?
Thanks.
There are some absolutely great tips here – I too should use twitter more and i had totally forgot about the widget to “re-tweet” – must get on that…thanks for posting!
@ David H.
One thought for you is to link to fellow Yakezie’s posts, whether in a round-up or when your write a new one keep the list
handy and link to one or two posts that add to your writing.
Since joining, I’ve gone from 191K to 106K, really pleased with the results.
Just saw this challenge after reading Budgeting in the Fun Stuff! I’m a new blogger in the PF community, but I’m in! Thanks for the inspiration and continued success to you and all the 1st pagers on the Wisebread Top 100. I hope to be there sooner than later so look out! :)
David, sounds good man. BITFS has been rocking it, showing that anybody can do great if they just stick with it!
All very good tips. Really, the more you give, the more that comes back to you. Think about this when looking for opportunities, guest posting, etc.
It’s tough, but if you stick with it, you will get there! It’s hard to be EVERYWHERE, but that’s what it takes to make it to the op. I would also add to make a list of sites that you like that are related to yours, and visit them at the very least, once a week, and comment often. They will eventually take notice and you will notice your stats go higher and higher.
Missed the first round, but looking forward to joining everyone in Yakezie now in the next phase!
Hi,
I just wanted to give you a quick update. Last week we signed up for the Alexa challenge with a very poor 10,000,000 ranking. This week we’re at 3,595,786, a massive improvement. Thanks to everyone who has visited our site.
Aside from visiting the blogs of the people who have commented here, is there anything else we should be doing?
Thanks.
Please follow us on Twitter: SEOpod
What a powerful and compelling post! You kept my attention right through to the end. You’re so right about the money. You can’t care about it. What’s really interesting is that as soon as you give up trying so hard to meet financial goals, the money starts coming in faster. What could be better than that? The more fun you have at your job, the more money you make! The hard part is surviving the first two years financially. While not signing up on the challenge, I’ll definitely be installing the toolbar and watching your progress!
Hi,
Had been hearing alot about the Yakezie Challenge, super excited to be a part of it.
Cheers,
Danny
FrugalQuack.com
Ok, I just posted my Yakezie article.
I would love to be a part of this challenge. I thought it was too late until I read the recap and see that it is just beginning!
When I first installed the toolbar (sometime last week, I think) my rank was 1,704,000 (rounding the last 3 digits). Today it is 828,363.
I am one of those that started blogging a while ago, but got off track and took some time off. I am back to blogging semi-regularly and looking forward to the challenge.
Current stats show that I have a 629,450 world wide ranking and 141,435 US ranking. Will post my ‘coming out’ article this week.
We’d love to be included.
We have uploaded the badge, included a blog entry and have checked out our alexia ranking…
10,207,000 I’m afraid.
Please let me know how we can be included.
After reading the recap, I’ve decided I’d like to be involved.
My current rank is 533,108.
So curious – where do we stand on the challenge? It’s after July 4 – are we continuing on?
If not, I appreciated the challenge, no question. :) I just wonder about our Alexa rankings at this point: if we all visited each other’s blogs with our toolbars intact, etc., that’s great, right? But isn’t it artificial rank-inflation that would necessarily end when the challenge ended? The average Joe reading our blogs probably doesn’t have the toolbar installed… right? :\
I’ll be curious to see what others of you think – this has been crazy-helpful and instructional for me, but I’m curious about the long-term benefits (if there are any) and how to keep our mojo, well… mojo’ing. :)
Hi Sue, post coming up next week. It’s all about relationship building. Hopefully you have built some good relationships over the couse of the challenge, which should help propel you forward. Stay tuned.
I’m a new blogger that’s just getting started. My current alexa ranking is 6 million +. Am I allowed to participate too?
I know it’s late, but I just joined the challenge. What’s the best way to promote other blogs on my site?? My Alexa Ranking as of today June 21, 2010 is 2,378,181 so I have a LOOOONG way to go.
I have been allowed in to the Yakezie Challenge, even though I cannot get the badge to work properly (therefore, it is not on my site).
When I started following the principles of the Yakezie on May 7th, my Alexa rank was 632,075. When I wrote the Yakezie intro post on my site today ), my rank was 203,076.
Thanks in advance to anyone that stops by my site. I have so enjoyed visiting other Yakezie member blogs.
Hello,
I’ve joined the challenge with MaximizingMoney.com and am excited to participate.
My current Alexa rank is 162,558, and I’m hoping to get that into the top 100,000.
I’ve installed the Alexa toolbar and I’ve installed the Yakezie badge on my site (see right side-bar toward bottom).
I’ve also just posted about joining the challenge on my blog.
I regularly Tweet, Stumble, etc. other finance blogs and will continue to do so, plus I’d be glad to participate in any other way possible if anybody is interested, please feel to contact me through my blog.
Thank you so much and looking forward to joining the top 100,000.
Max
Okay, I am in. Current Alexa rank: 126,334, added the yakezie and alexa badges, made the announcement at and looking forward to meeting great bloggers and interacting with all of you.
I am finally joining the challenge!! At the moment my blog is at 337,894…
The toolbar has been installed and I’m placing the badge on my site right now. I’m excited to use the challenge as a new source of motivation to keep me focused…and I’m looking forward to interacting with other participating bloggers as much as possible.
Thanks Sam!
Hey Earl – Sounds good man. Welcome to the club. We’re looking forward to your insights as a lifestyler! Make sure to contact Greg at Eliminate the Muda to join the Google Groups. Cheers, Sam
Well, I too am late in the game in joining the challenge today. My blog is about saving money, going green, and having fun. I really do appreciate any of your help in getting my Alexa count up as well as my subscribers. I currently even have a subscriber challenge which any of you can enter. My current Alexa count as of today is 1, 722, 015. I post the PEP (Prairie EcoThrifter Picks) every Friday which include all the great personal finance and frugal reads of the week that I have had a chance to check out. It is my way of supporting fellow bloggers. I wish you all the best of luck and thanks for letting me participate.
Hello! I posted a question earlier about having issues with the Yakezie badge on my site. I have tried many workarounds and such and cannot get it to work without deleting my text widgets. Mr. Samurai, can I please join even if I can’t put the badge on my page? Please? I promise to follow all the rules of the Yakezie!!
Thanks
Kris
I just joined the challenge. I’ve been watching it for a while and it is definitely working.
I wish I would have read the comments about installing the badge and having all your text widgets disappear before I tried to install the badge. Oh well, I had been needing to update my widgets anyway. Downloading the image to my computer and hosting it on my site works.
My current Alexa ranking is 444,332. That is about 100,00 higher than it was last week. It should rank even higher now that I’ve joined the challenge.
.-= Andy Hough´s last blog ..I Joined the Yakezie Challenge =-.
Uh oh… P.S. I see the little link-love widget didn’t pick up the requested post.
w00t! I’m in! Talk about jumping on the bandwagon as it’s rolling away! Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Jackie at Money Crush, and Mrs. Accountability have all been urging me to join…hope it’s not too late!
When I installed the Alexa Toolbar, FaM’s Alexa rating was a little over 235,000. Today it’s at 212,377. Can’t wait to see that number drop into the five-digits.
BTW, Sam– Alexa finally changed the data in its settings that I inadvertently published to the entire galaxy. It takes two or three days for changes to take effect.
Funny about Money, how are things going with ya? I’m just reviewing all the older comments, and it’s been a great and fast 8 months!
https://yakezie.com/10181/personal-finance/welcome-yakezie-beta-class
Hi, I just joined the Yakezie Challenge. I have installed the toolbar and badge. My ranking is 1,031,137.
ok, so I only just found out about this and it is only 1 month until it’s done, but I will join anyway. I have been working hard on getting a better ranking, so this is great.
I have been reading through so many of your blogs too and they are awesome. Lots of good advice and personal stories.
My blog is about my goal to become a millionaire as a sahm of 2 within 5 yrs. The ultimate goal is actually higher, but $1,000,000 seemed more achieveable and has a nice ring to it, lol.
.-= 1milchallenge´s last blog ..9 Things I’ve had to learn the hard way =-.
Hi, This is Victoria from – my Alexa rank is 5,764,237 do I need to do anything more than install the badge and the other requirements?
I have added a custom google search to search the Yakezie member blogs. If I have missed anyone please let me know.
thanks for creating this btw… very cool idea. Wish I had thought of it. :)
Im joining the challenge. Im ranked 602,510 right now.
I had issues installing the banner from the code given. doing so wiped out 3 of my widgets… they vanished. data lost. good thing I had backups. I had to ftp the banner to my site for it to work.
lets see how this goes.
I entered some information I do not want posted the the entire Internet, in response to questions on Alexa’s application form. Yeah, I know that was naive and I should’ve given them disinformation, but it’s a bit late now for the “don’t be stupid” response.
The site allows you to change your contact information, but it doesn’t actually change it. Got any ideas, other than siccing a lawyer on them, for how to get these people to fix this?
Hi Funny – I don’t quite understand what you’re asking? Alexa is revealing your private info? I’m sure if you get them on the phone, they’ll take it down, but I’ve never had to deal with any privacy issues with Alexa. They just have a website ranking algorithm.
Coming really really late to the challenge. I have added the badge, installed the toolbar and also announced it in my blog.
I am currently ranked 7,773,156. Long way to go! Coming way late to the party, but better late than never I guess. I am super excited and proud to be part of this group. Looking forward to highlighting my fellow members posts and working together! Thanks for setting this up! Could someone tell me what else I should be doing?
Welcome aboard Suba! Don’t forget to contact Greg at Eliminate the Muda and Joel from CCC. See ya around!
Thanks a lot for the welcome, Sam! I am glad I found this group!
I have contacted Gred @ Eliminate the muda and Joel @ CCC as well. Could you tell me how to submit a carnival post or how to volunteer to host a carnival? I tried searching but couldn’t find it. Sorry!
This is interesting. I didn’t realise that Alexa ranks were so important to people. You just wonder how accurate these results are outside say the top 1000.
I know here is johnny come lately… Investor Junkie just joined.
Welcome, I just joined too so don’t feel bad.
.-= Kevin´s last blog ..Don’t Miss Out On Easy Savings Chapter 1 =-.
I hope I’m still able to join. I put the badge up and I’m excited to get started. I’m currently ranked 1,059,759 and hope to reach 900,000 by July 4th. I look forward to getting to know everyone.
.-= Kevin´s last blog ..Friday Night Likes =-.
I am way late to the party but count me in :) Hope I can help someone else in the process!
Cheers!
Just joined the challenge. Put the badge up on my blog, and made the announcement!
Better late than never, that echos what a few others say. I agree!
I’m looking forward to being a part of this. All the best to everyone.
.-= Squirrelers´s last blog ..Yakezie Challenge =-.
I’m quite late to the party, but I’ve joined as well. My ranking is 9,455,581. I’ve got a long ways to go, but I’m working hard.
Jeff
It would be extremely helpful if on the Yakezie challenge page it showed the last time it was updated. Being a new blogger it feels like I might be late to the game and that the Yakezie challenge has gone fallow.
If I am wrong that’s great!
Hi Odysseustoday
Definitely hasn’t gone fallow. I just joined Monday (see notice a couple of comments above) and I’m already up 360,000 rankings.
.-= RetirementInvestingToday´s last blog ..Bulls, bears and the 200 day moving average =-.
I’m definitely late to the party, but I’m also up for the challenge. I’m weighing in currently at 578,098 with the Alexa toolbar installed. Thanks for the Challenge FS!
I’d like to join the challenge if it’s not too late! Alexa toolbar installed, I just added the badge, and will do a quick post later to talk about joining!
Happy to say I cracked 150K on the way down. Another 10K and I’ll be back on WiseBread’s top 100.
Good stuff Joe! Definitely great for you to get back in the top 100. I find your analysis and insights on taxes extremely insightful! Your contribution to the “Be A Sloth and Don’t ROTH!” post was excellent.
Bit late to the party but would like to join in. Alexa toolbar installed with an Alexa rank of 2,766,488. Yakezie badge installed.
and I’ve now added the blog announcement here https://retirementinvestingtoday.blogspot.com/2010/05/proud-member-of-yakezie-challenge.html
Do I have to do anything else to obtain membership?
Looking forward to engaging with others from the Yakezie challenge.
.-= RetirementInvestingToday´s last blog ..Bulls, bears and the 200 day moving average =-.
I am in for the long haul. I have the post with the badge already set up and have made the public announcement to my readers. I am very excited to participate in this challenge with you guys!
.-= Odysseustoday´s last blog ..Yakezie challenge =-.
Hello There,
WE ARE IN! We have a lot to do, so much so that our blog isn’t even ranked! We have installed the tool bar and the badge. This is a great opportunity and an excellent idea!
Thanks,
Timothy
Wealth Artisan Team Member
I wanted to be in, but I have twice tried installing the badge on my wordpress.org site, and both time, all my text links disappeared and the badge will not appear, no matter what I try. I have no idea what is going on. It must be a personal problem since I have not read about it from anyone else.
So, I am joining in spirit. I do have the toolbar and I will visit the sites listed in the challenge!
The same thing happened to me. Instead of linking to the image, save it in your own image folder.
.-= Bucksome´s last blog ..Help Stamp Out Hunger =-.
I tried saving the image in my own folder and pointing to that and the text links
disappeared again. Argh. I guess it just is not meant to be for me.
.-= Kris´s last blog ..Monitoring Your Net Worth – Just Organizing Your Information Can Bring Benefits =-.
Hey Kris –
If you need help with the badge, I can help you. Installing WP themes and tweaking them is part of what I do for a living, but I’m happy to help you as a Yakezie Challenge mate. Hit me at suetalbert AT gmail DOT com. Put “Yakezie button” in the subject line so it doesn’t get sent to my spam folder, k? :)
.-= sue´s last blog ..tasty tuesday: monkeying with magic mix =-.
Hello!
I just officially joined, thanks to Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff website. When I first saw her Yakezie Challenge badge and downloaded the Alexa toolbar, I was at over 4,000,000. Now on May 7, I am at 2,033,930–a great bump all ready from just be more aware that Alexa exists!
Thank you for hosting this challenge. I look forward to breaking 1,000,000 and beyond by July 4th. I will be posting about this on my blog over the weekend (most likely today), and have all ready downloaded the badge.
Could you please direct me to a comprehensive list of the Yakezie members? I’ve been trying one that’s updated, alas, to no avail. Thanks in advance!
currently showing 77 members.
How do I get on this list? I’ve had the button and widget, etc, for awhile now and thought I had done everything I needed to do!
We’ll get you on. Have you contacted Greg-san yet from Eliminate the Muda? Pls contact Joel at CCC as well. Also, try to stop by more often if you can here, or elsewhere, as it helps us keep track. Out of site, out of mind in a way, so definitely look forward to seeing you around.
I have been reading a lot about this and I’ve seen the badge on more than a few sites …I read the comments and you guys all seem like a cool bunch, so I’d like to join; please count me in!
I will write a post for Friday.
Sounds good Kevin. I think you’ll hit 1 million by end of this month now that you’ve joined!
As you are joining so late, please make the extra effort to get to know members in the group. There are some 72 of us, so it will take time. Don’t be a stranger and have fun in the process!
I’m in! Posted at . Thanks again.
Welcome Cheapskate Sandy! As you are joining so late, please make the extra effort to get to know members in the group. There are some 72 of us, so it will take time. Don’t be a stranger and have fun in the process!
Is your dance card full? I am in!
I am a pitiful 3,443,893. Guess I have some work to do!
.-= Mysti´s last blog ..Finding your Bliss Wednesday =-.
Let us know when you’ve made your announcement & follow the rest of the instructions and we’ll getcha in! Cheers
https://diggingoutfromourmess.blogspot.com/2010/05/jumping-on-bandwagon.html
I am in! Thanks!!!
.-= Mysti´s last blog ..Reality Check =-.
Welcome on the bandwagon as you put it! Hope to see you around the Yakezie more often, and don’t be a stranger! It’s great we have more women on board such as yourself and Cheapskate Sandy :)
Hey, we’re all set up.
Here’s a link to the post.
Current Alexa rank is about 345,800. I don’t know if it’s too ambitious by July 4th, but our plan is to be better than 150,000 by then. Lot’s of work to do, but definitely up to the challenge.
Look forward to meeting and networking with you all.
Cheers,
Guy
Sounds great Guy! Welcome aboard and hope to see you around the Yakezie group!
I’m in! (I hope)…I actually tried to post here last week but it disappeared into moderation limbo so I’m tryin’ again. Made the announcement post on my own blog last week.
I would be honored if you’d let me join the ranks even though it’s late in the game. I still want to break 200k by July! I think this community is great and look forward to promoting everybody. Thanks for setting it up.
Hi-I’m in! Check out my post, ( ) my ranking intl is just above 2,000,000 and about 150,000 in USA. But I’m going to be MOOOOVING on down!! How do I do one of those “small Yakezie Carnivals” which I’ve seen on some of the member blogs? Thanks for getting this competition going!
Welcome Barb! Read your post and I’m looking forward to seeing you around.
Most honorable Samurai-san, I humbly join the Yakezie Alexa Challenge. My search rank is far from great since I had a broken laptop and neglected posting for a while so I’ve fallen quite a bit. I join today with a ranking of 2,885,904 and U.S. ranking of 927,455. I’m on the top of page 4 of Wisebread’s ranking and my hope is to get to the middle of page 3 and make some friends. Arigato.
Hi Sandy, sure, let us know when you’ve made your announcement. Cheers.
I’m a little late to the party but I’d still like to dance, I am so in. I have the badge, announced my participation and can’t wait to get going! I love the enthusiasm that I see here and I am excited to share with my readers the great posts that I am reading on the other sites.
My current Alexa Ranking is 5,717,428…. like to break 1,000,000. by July. Good luck everyone!
Ingrid
After reading this post, I became inspired to participate as well. This is a great idea. I already uploaded the badge and annouced my participation on my blog. I can’t wait to get involved!
Current Alexa Ranking: 526K
Sam, thanks for the encouragement, I’M IN!!! I’ve got the badge up and the alexa widget. Here’s my rank: 2,215,648. My US is in the 150 k range. I’ll blog about it this week. (already tweeted).You are so POSITIVE!! and inclusive, I love it!! My middle name is “tenacious” and after 6 weeks blogging, I’m hugely enthusiastic about sharing all of my years of personal finance education and experience! love to promote others too, & I have a big shout out to Len Penzo dot com for encouraging me to join.