Brian has just emailed me to let me know about a new feature that Alexa have just added to their site whereby they are selling T-Shirts with a website’s web ranking on them.
When you go to your blog’s Alexa ranking page (here’s mine) and scroll down you’ll see at little area like this:
Click on the ‘More Tees’ link and you’re taken to a page with a variety of other T-Shirt options like this (click to enlarge the thumbnail below):
Click one of the T-shirts and you’re taken to a Zazzle page with the ability to buy your own T-Shirt where you can customize your T-shirt and then buy it for $16.45.
Ok – so two responses spring to mind:
1. Cool! This could be a bit of fun and while the T-Shirts that they offer are not the coolest designs I’ve seen they could be adapted with a site logo etc to make them better.
2. Are Alexa making money from our domains? Brian who sent the email alerting me to this was anything but happy about it. Personally, I’m not sure how many people are going to be ordering these T-Shirts except for sit owners themselves – but I wonder if perhaps others might share Brian’s concerns.
[…] Alexa Tees – Alexa has partnered with Cafepress rival Zazzle to offer a t-shirt with your domain name and Alexa rank on it. Don’t forget to download the Alexa toolbar so we can artificially increase Mashable’s rank. (via) […]
Darren,
Will you ever sell ProBlogger t-shirts again?
Rich
Either way, it seems that they are ‘making use’ of famous sites for this. I can’t really agree with them.
Interesting idea – but it’s still a little shaky… aren’t domain names copyrighted? I’m not sure Google will approve of Alexa making money of a t-shirt that says:
“25.764999%
say my site rocks!
http://www.google.com“
I can see both sides but the way I look at it personally is if someone wants a dipnoi t-shirt I am all for it. Hey, a little free advertising wouldn’t hurt.
yeah, i can’t imagine anyone searching out and buying it except for site owners. however, some sites will have a “fan club” and might promote the shirts with their amazon affiliate id? say, the xiaxue blogspot for example. she’s not selling the t-shirts, but she’s a pure personal blog with some serious fans.
even still…
i doubt there is much concern for Alexa making too much here.
A bit geeky but like Scott talks about, free advertising!!!
Haha, that’s funny. Unfortunately mine would need to say:
“Typically .005% say my site rocks, but sometimes I get lucky.”
or
“Hey, you ranked my site 3,000 yesterday, what’s wrong today?” ;)
Its a cool idea if taken in lighter wings.I saw that yesterday and was like wohoo we sued to do that in my college “My class is cool ” kind of stuff.
@Rich: Yes we can have like best commentator Tshirt from problogger.LOl ppl will hog then just to make comments….but will increase pageloads lol ;)
those are waaaay too geeky. I wouldnt be caught dead in something like that.
My cease and desist letter is on its way! ;)
Beat me to it ;(
Interesting idea, but there are very few of us that would wear our Alexa rank with pride.
Some nutters who would want such a t-shirt will now be downloading the Alexa toolbar and going through their own website all day!
[…] 1. New Alexa.com T-Shirts I first read about Alexa’s new t-shirts on Problogger’s site. The t-shirts are kinda cool. If you do a search on a URL, Alexa displays a t-shirt with the Alexa details for the searched URL. They have four styles to choose from, using Zazzle.com as their provider. Check it out, you’ll spend at least 45 minutes playing with the customization settings on Zazzle. […]
Wow, this so cool. Talk about promoting your blog. Had similar ideas about printing my own T-shirt bearing my blog’s name, domain and possibly some of ads.
Seems a pretty pointless idea to me – if you want to sell shirts with your domain name on, get over to CafePress.com and design your own.
[…] [EDIT] Darren Rowse, over at ProBlogger has the same t-shirt as I’ve chosen, but with a marginally higher % [/EDIT] digg_url=’http://lyndon.biz/play/get-your-custom-alexa-t-shirts/’; digg_skin = ”; digg_bgcolor = ‘#FFFFFF’; digg_title = ‘Get+your+custom+Alexa+T-Shirts%21’; digg_bodytext = ”; digg_topic = ”; Powered by Gregarious (21) […]
Only Site Owners can Buy Thier T-Shirt, Why For Other Buying your Domain T-shirt.
i Think This May Be For Some while or Some Months, After That Nobody Cares.
I’d rather design my own. Alexa ranking just doesn’t mean enough to me to want to wear it.
If you’re working on improving your site ranking then the t-shirt is likely to be out of date before it hits your mail box.
Interesting question, the copyright thing, but only in an intellectual-curiosity kind of way, and that only briefly. The shirts are hideous, and the whole idea of flaunting one’s modest Alexa rank is as lame as a bunch of boys in the locker room pulling out their rulers to see who’s the big man. Moving on… ;-)
[…] Alexa Tees – Alexa a conclu un partenariat avec CafePress (concurrent de Zazzle) pour offrir un t-shirt avec notre propre nom de domaine ainsi que votre Alexa Rank imprimés dessus. (via) […]
for me it’s better if i make it. hehe and name it no.1 blog hehehe
Logically, we are all looking to improve our Alexa ranking, so am I to presume that we would want to buy a new t-shirt every week/month?
What next? Baseball caps, sweaters, mugs?
As a owner of 3 websites I found this amusing. But I can’t imagine anyone but the most dedicated nerd would actually wear one of these.
1. It is a proven fact that Alexa can be manipulated
2. I don’t know anyone personally who has the Alexa toolbar installed
3. No one I know who does not do web design actually knows what Alexa is
Is profiting off somebody else’s brand illegal? This is just plain weird.
What an absolutely brutal idea. Who in their right mind would spend $18 on a ridiculously uncreative tshirt like those?!
Horrible idea. I’m betting this gets trashed within 6 months, after they get no more than 10 purchases from complete urkles who actually think that it would be good advertising to wear a shirt with their own domain name and Alexa ranking.
Who even uses Alexa anyway? haha..
[…] Alexa selling t-shirts with your domain on them. 0.0383% say this site rocks! Hmmm…. […]
I wonder if the 0.000345% people who think my site rocks would be interested in the 30 odd t-shirts that I have left over that are currently rotting in my shed? after no-one bought them last time :(
My cease and desist letter is sent this is theft!
Neither Alexa nor Zazzle asked my permission to print my copyrighted and/or trademarked property.
My cease and desist letter is sent this is theft!
Neither Alexa nor Zazzle asked my permission to print my copyrighted and/or trademarked property.
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“uncle wilco Says:
I wonder if the 0.000345% people who think my site rocks would be interested in the 30 odd t-shirts that I have left over that are currently rotting in my shed?”
=============
I sponsored a local basketball team and used up all my OLD T-shirts :)
[…] Alexa Tees – Alexa has partnered with Cafepress rival Zazzle to offer a t-shirt with your domain name and Alexa rank on it. Don’t forget to download the Alexa toolbar so we can artificially increase Mashable’s rank. (via) […]
Legally, I don’t believe they have a right to do this without the domain owners’ explicit permission.
Anyway, I use CatePress.com for T-Shirts and other merchandise (though for myself I’ve used printable iron-on transfers). CafePress is pretty cool. You don’t have to pay anything. You just pick a product, and upload an image to go on it (within their policies). Each product has a base price which covers costs and CafePress’s profit. You just mark-up the price so you’re actually making money off it.
I’d do CafePress too. Then they only get printed when they are purchased so there won’t be any t-shirts molding in your garage (we have ones from the last presidential election!)
I think this is useless.
What’s alexa?