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[info.alexa.com...] was the same old Alexa 12 hours ago when I was looking things up. About 10 minutes ago, Alexa's site certification scripts died, so I checked Alexa.com. It now says "Alexa websearch beta", "Powered by Google", too.
(Also, www.alexa.com is redirecting to info.alexa.com )
Front page is a seach box, and some "portalish" junk, like Editor's Picks, Amazon adverts (Amazon owns Alexa, remember?), a weekly columnist (who has a column listed for last week, confusingly enough), and a poll.
A couple of test searches look like Google results (for all languages) with click-tracking links to the sites, and links to Alexa's info page for each result. Top 3 results include the Alexa screenshot of the associated domain.
"Sponsored Results" on the right margin seem to be 1 or 2 Google AdWords, and an Amazon.com ad based on the keywords searched for.
And... a new Privacy Policy, dated 1 May 2002.
Generally speaking, I like Alexa, but I have no idea what they're thinking here. Does the Internet need another half-assed portal?
Ooh, the certificates are working again....
Very interesting.
1) If you type a URL (with or without the http:// prefix) into the search box, info.alexa.com site reverts to its old functionality, taking you directly to Alexa's info page for the URL's domain. (In some cases, though, I think it's pulling the URL's title from the ODP rather than the URL itself. There is no escaping the ODP, is there?)
2) Alexa's toolbar 6.5 Beta seems to have dumped Yahoo and Dogpile from the list of search options. Guess it's Google or nothing, now.
3) They already changed the Instant Poll? Jeez, it only had 43 votes on it when I found the new site....
I don't know how the installed user bases of the two Toolbars compare, but the data must have some serious potential for influencing search results.
(But then again they are archive.org)
the stats do look good, but given the small sample Im not sure how significant they are.
Correct, it's not from Google toolbar.
Does this mean that since Alexa is now utilizing conventional search sources, they no longer are to be despised for collecting unauthorized website stats?
You've got an issue with viewer-metered statistics? Wow. Those Neilsen and Arbitron guys must really tick you off.
I don't expect Alexa to give up the site-ranking system. It's their "thing". Without it, they're just another search plug-in.
Nope - Just with their unauthorized info collection and profiling tactics.
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Has anyone already recieved refferals from Alexa?
They are using the new Google update, however the screenshots are rather old.
Furthermore, the screenshot is always of the home/index page and not of the specific subpage google gives as an answer.
Some sites do not have screenshots, but are cached within Goolge. Is there any reason for this?
They have certainly been busy the last few months, I can't put my finger on it, but something has changed or is in the works based on this spider traffic. They are certainly investing much more in crawling fast, we know that takes cash - why?
Alexa continues to puzzle me...
This is an invitation for more spamming. I took out most of my email addresses on my sites, or put them in a GIF, in order to keep them away from harvesting bots.
Now Alexa is coughing up the addresses I pulled. Of course, they probably sell lists of addresses to spammers anyway.
(edited by: ciml at 5:55 pm (utc) on May 18, 2002)
