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{{Short description|American web traffic analysis company (1996–2022)}}{{For|Amazon's virtual assistant|Amazon Alexa}}
{{Mergefrom|Global 500 (internet)|date=January 2007}}

{{unreferenced|date=November 2006}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2014}}
{{Infobox Company
{{Infobox dot-com company
| company_name = Alexa
| company_logo = ] | name = Alexa Internet, Inc.
| logo = Alexa Internet logo.svg
| company_type = ]
| screenshot = Screenshots of Alexa internet.PNG
| foundation = 1996
| screenshot_size = 220
| location = ]
| caption = Alexa home page as of May 1, 2022
| key_people = ] & ]
| location = ], California, United States
| industry = ]
| president = Andrew Ramm<ref name="Management">{{cite web| url=https://www.alexa.com/about/management| title=Management| publisher=Alexa Internet| access-date=December 24, 2014| archive-date=September 12, 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190912214139/https://www.alexa.com/about/management| url-status=dead}}</ref>
| products = ]
| industry = ]
| homepage =
| products = Alexa ] (discontinued 2008)<br />Alexa ]
| owner = ]
| url =
| registration = Optional
| language = English
| company_type =
| launch_date = {{start date and age|1996|4|1}}<ref name=about>{{cite web|title=About Alexa Internet|url=https://www.alexa.com/company|access-date=October 9, 2009| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091007102542/https://www.alexa.com/company| archive-date= October 7, 2009|url-status= live}}</ref>
| creators = ], ]
| key_people = Andrew Ramm (president and GM)<br />Dave Sherfese (vice president)<ref name="Management"/>
| website_type = Web traffic and ranking
| current_status = Discontinued (as of {{end date and age|2022|5|1}})
}} }}
{{seealso|Global 500 (internet)}}
'''Alexa Internet''' is a ]-based ] ] of ] that is best known for operating a ] () that provides information on the ] to other websites. Alexa collects information from users who have installed an "]," allowing them to provide statistics on web site traffic, as well as lists of related links.


'''Alexa Internet, Inc.''' was a ] analysis company based in ], California. It was founded as an independent company by ] and ] in 1996. Alexa provided web traffic data, global rankings, and other information on over 30 million websites.<ref>{{cite web |title=About |url=https://www.alexa.com/company |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091007102542/https://www.alexa.com/company |archive-date=October 7, 2009 |access-date=January 18, 2015 |publisher=Alexa}}</ref> It was acquired by ] in 1999 for $250 million in stock.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hardy |first1=Quentin |title=The Big Deal: Brewster Kahle |url=https://www.forbes.com/2009/11/25/alexa-amazon-entrepreneur-intelligent-technology-kahle-big.html |access-date=7 February 2024 |website=Forbes |language=en}}</ref> Amazon discontinued the Alexa Internet service on May 1, 2022.<ref name="end news">{{cite news |date=2021-12-09 |title=Amazon closing down Alexa, the popular web traffic ranking site |url=https://www.thedailystar.net/tech-startup/news/amazon-closing-down-alexa-the-popular-web-traffic-ranking-site-2913401 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209065657/https://www.thedailystar.net/tech-startup/news/amazon-closing-down-alexa-the-popular-web-traffic-ranking-site-2913401 |archive-date=December 9, 2021 |access-date=Dec 9, 2021 |work=The Daily Star |language=en}}</ref><ref name="end of service announcement">{{cite web |title=We will be retiring Alexa.com on May 1, 2022 |url=https://support.alexa.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410503838999 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220102200605/https://support.alexa.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410503838999 |archive-date=January 2, 2022 |access-date=Dec 9, 2021}}</ref>
==Operations and history==
Alexa Internet was founded in ] by ] and Bruce Gilliat . The company offered a toolbar that gave Internet users guidance on where to go next, based on the traffic patterns of its user community. Alexa also offered context for each site visited: to whom it was registered, how many pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how frequently it was updated . Engineers at Alexa, in cooperation with the Internet Archive, created the Internet Archive's ]. Alexa also supplies the Internet Archive with ]s.


Alexa estimated website traffic based on a sample of millions of Internet users using browser extensions as well as from sites that had chosen to install an Alexa script.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alexa - Alexa Internet - About Us |url=https://www.alexa.com/about |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220501091553/https://www.alexa.com/about |archive-date=2022-05-01 |access-date=2022-07-17 |website=www.alexa.com}}</ref>&nbsp;As of 2020, its website was visited by over 400 million people every month.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}
In ], Alexa was acquired by ] for about $250 million in Amazon ] .


== Operations and history ==
The company's premises are in Building 37 of the ].


=== 1996–1999 ===
Alexa began a partnership with ] in ] ], and with the ] in ] ]. ] replaced Google as a provider of search results in ] ]. In ] they began using their own Search Platform to serve results. In ], they released ''Alexa Image Search''. Built in-house, it is the first major application to be built on their Web Platform. Today, Alexa is primarily a ], an Open Directory-based ], and a supplier of site information{{Fact|date=January 2007}}.
Alexa Internet was founded in April 1996 by ] and ].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1998/98-167.html|title=ALEXA Internet Donates Archive of the World Wide Web To Library of Congress|date=October 13, 1998|publisher=Alexa press release|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091013152257/http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1998/98-167.html|archive-date=October 13, 2009|url-status=dead|access-date=October 9, 2009}}</ref> The company's name was chosen in homage to the ] in ], drawing a parallel between the largest repository of knowledge in the ancient world and the potential of the ] to become a similar store of knowledge.<ref name="gift2">{{cite web|url=http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=17893|title=A "Gift of the Web" for the Library of Congress from Alexa Internet|date=October 19, 1998|access-date=June 27, 2017|archive-date=October 6, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006151308/http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=17893|url-status=live}}</ref> Alexa initially offered a toolbar that gave Internet users suggestions on where to go next based on the traffic patterns of its user community. The company also offered context for each site visited: to whom it was registered, how many pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how frequently it was updated.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tbtf.com/archive/1997-07-28.html|title=Alexa Internet opens the doors|author=Keith Dawson|date=July 28, 1997|access-date=October 9, 2009|archive-date=April 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130420230919/http://tbtf.com/archive/1997-07-28.html|url-status=live}}</ref>


Alexa's operations grew to include the archiving of web pages as they are ] and examined by an automated computer program (nicknamed a "bot" or "web crawler").<ref>{{Citation |last=Internet Archive |title=The Wayback Machine's First Crawl 1996 |date=2021-08-06 |url=http://archive.org/details/wayback-machine-1996 |access-date=2023-04-18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Bryant |first=Michael |date=2021-04-22 |title=What is the Wayback Machine and Why is it Useful? |url=https://www.groovypost.com/explaier/what-is-the-wayback-machine-and-why-is-it-useful/ |access-date=2023-04-18 |website=groovyPost |language=en-US}}</ref> This database served as the basis for the creation of the ], accessible through the ].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/about/faqs.php|title=Internet Archive FAQs|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091021003552/https://archive.org/about/faqs.php|archive-date=October 21, 2009|url-status=live|access-date=October 9, 2009}}</ref> In 1998, the company donated a copy of the archive, two ]s in size, to the ].<ref name="gift2" /> Alexa continued to supply the ] with web crawls. In 1999, as the company moved away from its original vision of providing an "intelligent" ], Alexa was acquired by Amazon.com for approximately US$250 million in Amazon ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/05/24/newscolumn4.html|title=E-commerce loves Street: Critical Path plans encore|author=Adam Feuerstein|date=May 21, 1999|work=]|access-date=November 5, 2013|archive-date=June 30, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630074336/http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/05/24/newscolumn4.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
Alexa also provides "site info" for the ] search engine.


=== 2000–2009 ===
In December 2005, Alexa opened its extensive search index and web-crawling facilities to third party programs through a comprehensive set of ]s and ]s. These could be used for instance to construct vertical ]s that could run on Alexa's own servers or elsewhere. Uniquely, their gives developers access to their raw crawl data.
Alexa began a partnership with ] in early 2002 and with the web directory ] in January 2003.<ref name="about2">{{cite web|url=https://www.alexa.com/company|title=About Alexa Internet|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091007102542/https://www.alexa.com/company|archive-date=October 7, 2009|url-status=live|access-date=October 9, 2009}}</ref> In December 2005, Alexa opened its extensive ] and ] facilities to third-party programs through a comprehensive set of ]s and ]. These could be used, for instance, to construct ] engines that could run on Alexa's servers or elsewhere. In May 2006, Google was replaced by ] as a provider of search results.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.infoworld.com/t/data-management/amazon-dumps-google-windows-live-156|title=Amazon dumps Google for Windows Live|author=Elizabeth Montalbano|date=May 1, 2006|publisher=Infoworld|access-date=November 6, 2011|archive-date=February 17, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130217025330/http://www.infoworld.com/t/data-management/amazon-dumps-google-windows-live-156|url-status=live}}</ref> In December 2006, Amazon released Alexa Image Search. Built in-house, it was the first major application built on the company's Web platform. In May 2007, Alexa changed their API to limit comparisons to three websites, reduce the size of embedded graphs in ], and add mandatory embedded BritePic advertisements.


In April 2007, the company filed a lawsuit, ''Alexa v. Hornbaker,'' to stop ] by the Statsaholic service.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/z/200701/show_case_doc-1.pdf|title=Northern California District Federal court Case number&nbsp;— C 07-01715 RS|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070422113607/http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/z/200701/show_case_doc-1.pdf|archive-date=April 22, 2007|url-status=dead|access-date=April 19, 2007}}</ref> In the lawsuit, Alexa alleged that Ron Hornbaker was stealing traffic graphs for profit and that the primary purpose of his site was to display graphs that were generated by Alexa's servers.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-sues-alexaholic-everyone-loses/|title=Amazon sues Alexaholic...everyone loses!|author=Alan Graham|date=April 18, 2007|publisher=ZDnet|access-date=March 14, 2016|archive-date=August 5, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805092117/https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-sues-alexaholic-everyone-loses/|url-status=live}}</ref> Hornbaker had removed the term ''Alexa'' from his service name on March 19, 2007.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mashable.com/2007/04/19/amazon-sues-alexaholic...web-as-platform-is-bullsht/|title=Amazon sues Statsaholifghkhc...Web as Platform is Bullsh*t|author=Pete Cashmore|date=April 19, 2007|publisher=Mashable|access-date=February 14, 2013|archive-date=March 22, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322214205/https://mashable.com/2007/04/19/amazon-sues-alexaholic...web-as-platform-is-bullsht/|url-status=live}}</ref> On November 27, 2008, Amazon announced that Alexa Web Search was no longer accepting new customers and that the service would be deprecated or discontinued for existing customers on January 26, 2009.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.techflash.com/Report_Amazon_pullling_plug_on_Alexa_Web_Search35187569.html|title=Amazon pulling plug on Alexa Web Search|author=John Cook|date=November 27, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081203233157/http://www.techflash.com/Report_Amazon_pullling_plug_on_Alexa_Web_Search35187569.html|archive-date=December 3, 2008|url-status=live|access-date=November 27, 2008}}</ref> Thereafter, Alexa became a purely analytics-focused company.
== Alexa rank information and the Alexa Toolbar ==


On March 31, 2009, Alexa revealed a major website redesign. The redesigned site provided new web traffic metrics, including average page views per individual user, ] (the rate of users who come to and then leave a webpage), and user time on the ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://awis.blogspot.com/2009/03/pardon-our-dust.html|title=Pardon our dust|author=Geoffrey Mack|date=March 31, 2009|publisher=Alexa Internet|access-date=November 6, 2011|archive-date=April 4, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090404132442/http://awis.blogspot.com/2009/03/pardon-our-dust.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In the following weeks, Alexa added more features, including visitor demographics, ], and web search traffic statistics.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://awis.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-new-alexa-features-demographics.html|title=More New Alexa Features: Demographics, Clickstream, Search Traffic|author=Geoffrey Mack|date=April 14, 2009|access-date=October 9, 2009|archive-date=April 17, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090417044759/http://awis.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-new-alexa-features-demographics.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
Alexa ranks sites based on visits from users of its ] for Internet Explorer and from integrated sidebars in Mozilla and Netscape. There are several third-party extensions for ]; these extensions do affect Alexa rankings.
* shows Google PageRank and Alexa TrafficRank
* Firefox plug-in that shows metadata from Alexa TrafficRank.


=== 2010–2020 ===
There is some controversy over how representative Alexa's user base is of typical Internet behavior. If Alexa's user base is a fair ] of the internet user population (e.g., a random sample of sufficient size), Alexa's ranking should be quite accurate (see ]). In reality, not much is known about the sample and it may or may not have many sources of ]. Alexa itself notes several examples ( and )
During this period, Alexa's algorithm had been evolving along with it. Statistics projection and the use of their technology associated with a large network of certificated websites allowed them to keep ahead of the website traffic metrics around the world. Because of this, many large sites were using it as the main reference for popularity on the internet.


On November 6, 2014, Amazon announced ], their ]. Amazon already had trademarks for ''Alexa'' due to their ownership of Alexa Internet, Inc.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Etherington |first1=Darrell |date=November 6, 2014 |title=Amazon Echo Is A $199 Connected Speaker Packing An Always-On Siri-Style Assistant |work=] |url=https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/06/amazon-echo/ |access-date=September 2, 2016}}</ref>
Another concern is whether Alexa ratings are easily manipulated. Some webmasters claim that they can significantly improve the Alexa ranking of less popular sites by making them the default page, by exchanging web traffic with other webmasters, and by requiring their users to install the Alexa toolbar; however, such claims are often anecdotal and are offered without statistics or other evidence.


== See also == === End of service ===
On December 8, 2021, Amazon announced the cessation of its website ranking and competitive analysis service, which has been available to the public for more than 25 years. From that day on, it was no longer possible to create accounts or buy subscriptions on the service. The statement first published on its website specifies the total cessation of the service as of May 1, 2022. Existing subscriptions would be available until May 1, 2022, UTC, after which everything on the site would be removed and replaced with an "End of Service Notice".{{R|end news}}{{R|end of service announcement}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-05-02 |title=End of Service Notice |url=https://www.alexa.com/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220502141953/https://www.alexa.com/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2022-05-02 |access-date=2022-05-04 |website=archive.ph}}</ref>
* ]

The alexa.com domain is now a landing page for ] products.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Amazon Alexa |url=https://alexa.com/ |access-date=2024-11-12 |website=alexa.com}}</ref>

== Alexa Traffic Rank ==
A key ] published from Alexa Internet ] was the Alexa Traffic Rank, also simply known as Alexa Rank. It was also referred to as ''Global Rank'' by Alexa Internet and was designed to be an estimate of a website's popularity. {{As of|May 2018}}, Alexa Internet's tooltip for Global Rank said the rank is calculated from a combination of daily visitors and page views on a website over a three-month period.<ref name="siteinfoWikipedia2">{{cite web|url=https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org|title=wikipedia.org Traffic Statistics|publisher=Alexa Internet|id=Global Rank|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180509193547/https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org|archive-date=9 May 2018|url-status=live|access-date=10 May 2018}}</ref>

The Alexa Traffic Rank could be used to monitor the popularity trend of a website and compare the popularity of different websites.<ref name="SaleOpt2">{{cite web|url=https://www.salesoptimize.com/improve-your-alexa-ranking/|title=How & Why to Improve Your Alexa Ranking|last=Fulham|first=Liz|date=10 May 2018|publisher=Sales@Optimize|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171116150113/https://www.salesoptimize.com/improve-your-alexa-ranking/|archive-date=16 November 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

The traffic rank used to be determined from data recollected from users that had the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser. As of 2020, Alexa did not use a toolbar; instead, it used data from users that had installed any of a number of browser extensions and from websites that had the Alexa script installed on their webpages.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.alexa.com/about|title=Alexa - Alexa Internet - About Us|publisher=www.alexa.com|access-date=March 30, 2020|archive-date=October 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026074526/https://www.alexa.com/about|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blog.alexa.com/alexa-panel-increase/|title=Alexa Increases its Global Traffic Panel|first=Jennifer|last=Yesbeck|date=October 1, 2014|website=Alexa Blog|access-date=July 4, 2020|archive-date=July 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706042009/https://blog.alexa.com/alexa-panel-increase/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Tracking ==

=== Browser extensions ===
Alexa replaced their toolbar with browser extensions. These extensions were made available for Google Chrome and Firefox browsers. The Alexa browser extension displayed the Alexa Traffic Rank for websites, showed related websites, provided search analytics, and quickly allowed users to view the Internet Archive through the Wayback Machine.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Alexa Browser Extension|url=https://www.alexa.com/toolbar|access-date=2020-09-18|website=www.alexa.com|archive-date=January 3, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220103051925/https://www.alexa.com/toolbar|url-status=dead}}</ref> They were last updated in May 2020, two years prior to the service's closure.

==== Toolbar ====
Alexa used to rank sites based primarily on tracking a sample set of Internet traffic—users of its ] for the ], ] and ] web browsers.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.alexa.com/company/technology|title=Technology: How and Why We Crawl the Web|publisher=Alexa|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140402163843/https://www.alexa.com/company/technology|archive-date=April 2, 2014|access-date=November 6, 2011}}</ref><ref name="davis2">{{cite book|title=Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with AdSense, Adwords, and the Google APIs|author=Harold Davis|publisher=O'Reilly Media|year=2006|isbn=978-0-596-10108-4|page=|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/googleadvertisin00davi/page/12}}</ref> The Alexa Toolbar included a ] (which stops unwanted ads), a search box, links to ] and the Alexa homepage, and the Alexa ranking of the website that the user is visiting. It also allowed the user to rate the website and view links to external, relevant websites. In early 2005, Alexa stated that there had been 10 million downloads of the toolbar, though the company did not provide statistics about active usage. Originally, web pages were only ranked amongst users who had the Alexa Toolbar installed, and could be biased if a specific audience subgroup was reluctant to take part in the rankings. This caused some controversies over how representative Alexa's user base was of typical Internet behavior,<ref>{{cite book|title=Complete Web Monitoring: Watching Your Visitors, Performance, Communities, and Competitors |url=https://archive.org/details/completewebmonit00crol_895|url-access=limited|author1=Alistair Croll|author2=Seán Power|publisher=O'Reilly Media|year=2009|isbn=978-0-596-15513-1|page=}}</ref> especially for less-visited sites.<ref name="davis2" /> In 2007, ] provided examples of Alexa rankings known to contradict data from the ] ] service, including ranking ] ahead of Google.<ref>Michael Arrington. ; . TechCrunch. 2007. Retrieved June 21, 2013.</ref> In 2021 John Mueller from Google confirmed again that Google does not use Amazon Alexa Rank.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Murari |first=Krishna |title=Google Do Not Use Domain Authority And Alexa Rank {{!}} The Seo Today |url=https://www.theseotoday.com/2021/10/domain-authority-and-alexa-rank.html |access-date=2022-07-13 |language=en}}</ref>

=====Search Status=====
Until 2007, a ]-supplied ] called Search Status for the ] browser<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ |title=SearchStatus: A Search Extension for Firefox and SeaMonkey|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130627071242/http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ |archive-date=27 June 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> served as the only option for Firefox users after Amazon abandoned its ] toolbar.<ref name="a92"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080608183909/http://toolbar.a9.com/ |date=June 8, 2008 }}. A9.com. Retrieved June 24, 2013.</ref> On July 16, 2007, Alexa released an official toolbar for Firefox called Sparky.<ref name="Sparky2"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070729134152/http://awis.blogspot.com/2007/07/sparky-add-on-for-firefox-released.html |date=July 29, 2007 }}. Alexa Blog. July 16, 2007. Retrieved June 24, 2013.</ref> On 16 April 2008, many users reported drastic shifts in their Alexa rankings. Alexa confirmed this later in the day with an announcement that they had released an updated ranking system, claiming that they would now take into account more sources of data "beyond Alexa Toolbar users".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.alexa.com/site/company/announcement|title=Alexa Announcement|publisher=Alexa|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424144640/https://www.alexa.com/site/company/announcement|archive-date=April 24, 2008|url-status=live|access-date=September 22, 2012}}</ref><ref>. TechCrunch. April 16, 2008. Retrieved December 1, 2012.</ref>

=== Certified statistics ===
Using the Alexa Pro service, website owners could sign up for "certified statistics", which allowed Alexa more access to a website's traffic data.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.alexa.com/pro/digital_marketer|title=Alexa Pro for Digital Marketers|publisher=Alexa|access-date=January 18, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141230145536/http://www.alexa.com/pro/digital_marketer|archive-date=December 30, 2014}}</ref> Site owners input ] code on each page of their website that, if permitted by the user's security and privacy settings, ran and sent traffic data to Alexa, allowing Alexa to display—or not display, depending on the owner's preference—more accurate statistics such as total page views and unique page views.

==See also==
{{Portal|Internet}}
* {{annotated link|Google Analytics}}
* ]
* ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}


== External links == == External links ==
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{{Amazon}} {{Amazon}}
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Latest revision as of 08:19, 18 December 2024

American web traffic analysis company (1996–2022)For Amazon's virtual assistant, see Amazon Alexa.

Alexa Internet, Inc.
Alexa home page as of May 1, 2022
Type of siteWeb traffic and ranking
Available inEnglish
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, United States
OwnerAmazon
Created byBrewster Kahle, Bruce Gilliat
PresidentAndrew Ramm
Key peopleAndrew Ramm (president and GM)
Dave Sherfese (vice president)
IndustryWeb traffic
ProductsAlexa Web Search (discontinued 2008)
Alexa toolbar
URLalexa.com (archived)
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedApril 1, 1996; 28 years ago (1996-04-01)
Current statusDiscontinued (as of May 1, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-05-01))

Alexa Internet, Inc. was a web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco, California. It was founded as an independent company by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat in 1996. Alexa provided web traffic data, global rankings, and other information on over 30 million websites. It was acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million in stock. Amazon discontinued the Alexa Internet service on May 1, 2022.

Alexa estimated website traffic based on a sample of millions of Internet users using browser extensions as well as from sites that had chosen to install an Alexa script. As of 2020, its website was visited by over 400 million people every month.

Operations and history

1996–1999

Alexa Internet was founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat. The company's name was chosen in homage to the Library of Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt, drawing a parallel between the largest repository of knowledge in the ancient world and the potential of the Internet to become a similar store of knowledge. Alexa initially offered a toolbar that gave Internet users suggestions on where to go next based on the traffic patterns of its user community. The company also offered context for each site visited: to whom it was registered, how many pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how frequently it was updated.

Alexa's operations grew to include the archiving of web pages as they are "crawled" and examined by an automated computer program (nicknamed a "bot" or "web crawler"). This database served as the basis for the creation of the Internet Archive, accessible through the Wayback Machine. In 1998, the company donated a copy of the archive, two terabytes in size, to the Library of Congress. Alexa continued to supply the Internet Archive with web crawls. In 1999, as the company moved away from its original vision of providing an "intelligent" search engine, Alexa was acquired by Amazon.com for approximately US$250 million in Amazon stock.

2000–2009

Alexa began a partnership with Google in early 2002 and with the web directory DMOZ in January 2003. In December 2005, Alexa opened its extensive search index and Web-crawling facilities to third-party programs through a comprehensive set of Web services and APIs. These could be used, for instance, to construct vertical search engines that could run on Alexa's servers or elsewhere. In May 2006, Google was replaced by Windows Live Search as a provider of search results. In December 2006, Amazon released Alexa Image Search. Built in-house, it was the first major application built on the company's Web platform. In May 2007, Alexa changed their API to limit comparisons to three websites, reduce the size of embedded graphs in Flash, and add mandatory embedded BritePic advertisements.

In April 2007, the company filed a lawsuit, Alexa v. Hornbaker, to stop trademark infringement by the Statsaholic service. In the lawsuit, Alexa alleged that Ron Hornbaker was stealing traffic graphs for profit and that the primary purpose of his site was to display graphs that were generated by Alexa's servers. Hornbaker had removed the term Alexa from his service name on March 19, 2007. On November 27, 2008, Amazon announced that Alexa Web Search was no longer accepting new customers and that the service would be deprecated or discontinued for existing customers on January 26, 2009. Thereafter, Alexa became a purely analytics-focused company.

On March 31, 2009, Alexa revealed a major website redesign. The redesigned site provided new web traffic metrics, including average page views per individual user, bounce rate (the rate of users who come to and then leave a webpage), and user time on the website. In the following weeks, Alexa added more features, including visitor demographics, clickstream, and web search traffic statistics.

2010–2020

During this period, Alexa's algorithm had been evolving along with it. Statistics projection and the use of their technology associated with a large network of certificated websites allowed them to keep ahead of the website traffic metrics around the world. Because of this, many large sites were using it as the main reference for popularity on the internet.

On November 6, 2014, Amazon announced Amazon Alexa, their virtual assistant. Amazon already had trademarks for Alexa due to their ownership of Alexa Internet, Inc.

End of service

On December 8, 2021, Amazon announced the cessation of its website ranking and competitive analysis service, which has been available to the public for more than 25 years. From that day on, it was no longer possible to create accounts or buy subscriptions on the service. The statement first published on its website specifies the total cessation of the service as of May 1, 2022. Existing subscriptions would be available until May 1, 2022, UTC, after which everything on the site would be removed and replaced with an "End of Service Notice".

The alexa.com domain is now a landing page for Amazon Alexa products.

Alexa Traffic Rank

A key metric published from Alexa Internet analytics was the Alexa Traffic Rank, also simply known as Alexa Rank. It was also referred to as Global Rank by Alexa Internet and was designed to be an estimate of a website's popularity. As of May 2018, Alexa Internet's tooltip for Global Rank said the rank is calculated from a combination of daily visitors and page views on a website over a three-month period.

The Alexa Traffic Rank could be used to monitor the popularity trend of a website and compare the popularity of different websites.

The traffic rank used to be determined from data recollected from users that had the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser. As of 2020, Alexa did not use a toolbar; instead, it used data from users that had installed any of a number of browser extensions and from websites that had the Alexa script installed on their webpages.

Tracking

Browser extensions

Alexa replaced their toolbar with browser extensions. These extensions were made available for Google Chrome and Firefox browsers. The Alexa browser extension displayed the Alexa Traffic Rank for websites, showed related websites, provided search analytics, and quickly allowed users to view the Internet Archive through the Wayback Machine. They were last updated in May 2020, two years prior to the service's closure.

Toolbar

Alexa used to rank sites based primarily on tracking a sample set of Internet traffic—users of its browser toolbar for the Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. The Alexa Toolbar included a popup blocker (which stops unwanted ads), a search box, links to Amazon.com and the Alexa homepage, and the Alexa ranking of the website that the user is visiting. It also allowed the user to rate the website and view links to external, relevant websites. In early 2005, Alexa stated that there had been 10 million downloads of the toolbar, though the company did not provide statistics about active usage. Originally, web pages were only ranked amongst users who had the Alexa Toolbar installed, and could be biased if a specific audience subgroup was reluctant to take part in the rankings. This caused some controversies over how representative Alexa's user base was of typical Internet behavior, especially for less-visited sites. In 2007, Michael Arrington provided examples of Alexa rankings known to contradict data from the comScore web analytics service, including ranking YouTube ahead of Google. In 2021 John Mueller from Google confirmed again that Google does not use Amazon Alexa Rank.

Search Status

Until 2007, a third-party-supplied Mozilla plug-in called Search Status for the Firefox browser served as the only option for Firefox users after Amazon abandoned its A9 toolbar. On July 16, 2007, Alexa released an official toolbar for Firefox called Sparky. On 16 April 2008, many users reported drastic shifts in their Alexa rankings. Alexa confirmed this later in the day with an announcement that they had released an updated ranking system, claiming that they would now take into account more sources of data "beyond Alexa Toolbar users".

Certified statistics

Using the Alexa Pro service, website owners could sign up for "certified statistics", which allowed Alexa more access to a website's traffic data. Site owners input JavaScript code on each page of their website that, if permitted by the user's security and privacy settings, ran and sent traffic data to Alexa, allowing Alexa to display—or not display, depending on the owner's preference—more accurate statistics such as total page views and unique page views.

See also

References

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