How can I block Alexa Toolbar users?

Question

Any ideas how I can block Alexa Toolbar users? I don't want to appear in the rankings while we are in beta ...

I see you can block their search engine with

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

but I can't find any documentation on how to pull your self from actually being ranked.. I read earlier someone tried to email them and they rufused.. So I guess I'm forced to block them?

Any better ideas, or way ideas on how to block them access?

Answer 1

This is an interesting one. Surely they work out how popular you are by other sites and external info so even blocking them might now work.

Why block them?

Answer 2

For those finding this post later I worked out my own solution. Seems when the alex toolbar is installed it shows up in the user agent.

<?php 
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
?>

You can redirect those users with php

preg_match('/(Alexa)/i',$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])?header('Location: http://alexausersgohere.com'):null;

You could also just redirect them by dumping this in your .htaccess file.

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Alexa
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ alexausersgohere.com#$1 [R=301,L]

Make sure you double check that htaccess code I just wrote it as a demonstration, its un-tested I used php.

Answer 3

What do you think blocking is going to accomplish? By the time your web server sees the request, the browser has (obviously) sent the request and the toolbar (can have) observed and recorded the request. The response you send back can't undo any of that.