[Moosilauke]

Nice to see favorable publicity but note well that their rankings are created "...by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users."
I've never seen, let alone used, an "Alexa Toolbar" and I'd bet that goes for the large majority of Freepers. I wouldn't go to the bank with rankings based on a minuscule, and possibly not very representative, sample of the web-using public.

[HighWheeler]

Alexa is ranked nuber 6 on the entire Internet. Alexa is THE sleeper Internet site of all time.

[HighWheeler]

go to

http://www.alexa.com/?p=Det_W_g_40_T1

then go to the right side of the dark blue bar, and hit "FREE TOOLBAR". It is a small file that loads a toolbar on your browser. It also loads an uninstall option on the main menu if you don't like it. The toolbar shows you the ranking of every site you go to and related sites.

[JoJo Gunn]

Alexa is considered by many to be spyware, in cahoots with MS, and it's in IE 5.5 and 6. Run AdAware and it'll find it. (If you upgrade from 5.5 to 6 Alexa goes back in, by the way).

Or you can find it in the registry:


Alexa key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\internet explorer\extensions\{c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a}\

[RonDog]

Nice to see favorable publicity but note well that their rankings are created "...by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users."

I've never seen, let alone used, an "Alexa Toolbar" and I'd bet that goes for the large majority of Freepers.
I wouldn't go to the bank with rankings based on a minuscule, and possibly not very representative, sample of the web-using public.

Aye, but that means that their "miniscule unrepresentative sample" is eminently FReep-able...

... i.e., subject to dramatic intervention by motivated members of this forum, who may download the Alexa toolbar at rates significantly higher rate than OTHER web-surfers...

While I have some concerns about letting Alexa (aka amazon.com) follow me around as I surf the web, I will keep their toolbox on my browser - for a while - to support this forum.

Still, I am somewhat confused by THIS explanation of their methodology:

Question:
How are Alexa's traffic rankings determined?
Common Questions

As of May 15, 2002 Alexa has started using a new method for determining a site's traffic ranking.

Alexa's traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site's ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview. The site with the highest combination of users and pageviews is ranked #1.

Alexa's traffic rankings are for top level domains only (e.g. domain.com). We do not provide seperate rankings for subpages within a domain (e.g. www.domain.com/subpage.html) or subdomains (e.g. subdomain.domain.com) unless we are able to automatically identify them as personal home pages, like those hosted on Geocities and Tripod. If a site is identified as a personal home page, its traffic ranking will have an asterisk (*) next to it: Personal Page Avg. Traffic Rank: 3,456*. Personal pages are ranked on the same scale as a regular domain, so a personal page ranked 3,456* is the 3,456th most popular page among Alexa users.

For more detailed information about Alexa's traffic rankings, please visit http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/traffic_learn_more.html.