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California Same-Sex Marriage Campaigns on the Web
In addition to the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency this month, one of the most newsworthy battles was that of Californians to overturn a previous ruling by the California Supreme Court that same-sex marriage was legal. Opponents of same-sex marriage put a proposition on the state ballot to reverse that decision by amending the state constitution to say, "Only marriage between
What's Hot on the Web Right Now?
Alexa keeps rolling out exciting new features. We recently made new features available on our Top Sites Lists, and those are being well-received by web professionals. While I work for Alexa Internet and am interested in that sort of data, I tend to like shiny things. So, for those of you who, like me, are interested in the new new thing, I would like to point out our newest homepage offering,
New Top Sites Lists Have Exclusive Data Points
Update: This post refers to Top Sites lists we are no longer selling. You can now download a CSV file of the top million sites ranked by Alexa for free. Just click on the blue box after site number five on the linked page.
If you use Alexa's traffic data to make business decisions, you're going to love this.
Now, for the first time, we are making data available in our downloadable Top Sites
Election Year Scandals for Traffic
I have recently been interested in the way smaller sites with which I was not previously familiar hit my radar as I observe traffic surging to them for one particular article relating to some scandal or other in the presidential election. Whether it's a confession, a funny image, or a fake interview, one well placed election-related item can put a site on the map.
Such was the case, for example
About That Bailout
In the past few weeks, all the talk of the Wall Street bailou--ahem: Rescue Plan--had me wondering where people might be going on the web in order to follow the issue. While there would potentially be a flurry of activity to various banks for statements about the crisis, I was curious about any sort of sites that might have been pro- or anti-bailout. Then I saw this article in the San Francisco
Election Websites
Since I have recently been exploring new sites with the aid of Alexa's new Related Links, I've been encouraged to see that sites providing political information have been receiving spikes in traffic of late. An informed citizen is the sort I'd rather have voting, and in the twenty-first century, there's plenty of information a click away for those who take their democratic responsibilities
Alexa's New Related Links
I'm very excited to tell you about Alexa's new and improved Related Links. For the last few months we have been toiling away developing devious new algorithms to tease better related links out of our Web crawl. While I can't divulge the secret sauce, I can say that the work paid off in a big way.
If you have an Alexa Toolbar or Sparky (everybody does, right?) then you can really enjoy the full
Presidential Campaign Events and Web Traffic
With the U.S. presidential election season now in high gear, I've been interested in events that are a part of the process and how they drive web traffic. Which events on the campaign trail drive which surfers to which sites? Sometimes, an official campaign site of Senator Obama or Senator McCain will get the traffic; other times, it's political blog/forum websites that get the bump.
As I
Web Traffic Versus Ticket Sales
I recently noticed the popularity of the new Will Smith movie Hancock when it hit our Movers and Shakers. I'd seen it advertised on the sides of buses, but was not really sure what it was about; after a quick trip to the official site, I realized it was not-your-grandfather's-superhero flick. It was certainly popular among folks based on traffic to the website, but I wondered if this would
Presidential Politics on the Web
When a news story broke a few days ago about Senator John McCain's technical adviser having said, "John McCain is aware of the Internet," I was reminded of McCain's own earlier admission that, "I'm an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get."
While it's debatable whether the leader of the free world might need to know how to use a computer in order to understand
Oil and Gas Prices Increase Traffic to Price Comparison Tools
I remember when, a few years ago, I first started to notice websites with aggregated, user-submitted gas price information, essentially gas price comparison tools.
While I don't drive, these things seemed like a lot of work to me. First, you'd have to have enough people in your area know about the sites. Then, you'd have to have enough people care enough about the sharing of information to post
Mothers and Sweethearts
Sometimes, Internet traffic data makes one scratch his or her head. In reviewing the traffic over the last six months to flower and gift sites, I've noticed something I can't quite wrap my brain around.
When comparing the traffic of three major online florists and one gift site, Tiffany.com, I notice something interesting: moms don't make out as well as sweethearts.
For all of these sites,
We're Back
Though we had a brief glitch that prevented us from displaying Traffic Rank numbers for some sites, the error has been corrected. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Please Stand By...
Thank you to all of you who have been writing today about some missing rank data on our site. We are working to get the missing information out to you as soon as possible. Please note that all of the data that you are seeing on our site right now, with the sole exception of sites ranked as “no data”, is not affected by this issue. Stay tuned. We expect all of the data to be released
Facebook Overtakes Myspace
Mark it on your calendar - April 19, 2008 - the date that Facebook overtook Myspace as the #1 social networking site on the Web.
This has been a long time coming. Facebook has been steadily increasing reach while Myspace has been treading water. Over the course of the last 8 months facebook has seen its unique visitors double, growing its reach from 4% in September of last year to 8% today.
Good Golly, it's MOLI
Is the graph to the left an indication of another social networking site crossing a threshold? The newish site MOLI just hit my radar as I was watching some graphs of recent Mover sites that aren't overnight spikes followed by a return to their former levels. This one has been on a steady climb for at least a few weeks.
I've seen enough of these things come along over time to recognize the
The Alexa Ranking system has been changed
The New Alexa RankingsWe've been working hard behind the scenes for several months and are excited to announce that our new Alexa Rankings system is available.When Alexa began displaying rankings in 1998 it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. We generated the rankings through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use
The Power of YouTube
I was looking at the most recent batch of Movers and Shakers today, and I noticed a site among the top three that is not in any way affiliated with March Madness. Once it caught my attention, I felt like digging in to see what was going on.
The site is Avaaz.org and they're into global social justice issues, organizing online, that sort of thing. They have an international staff of campaigners,
Madness, I Tell You
Looking at the graph of the top three Movers, I'm reminded of how my job in Web metrics has made me (slightly) cooler. There was honestly a time when I had no idea what March Madness was--none at all. I think I occasionally heard it and associated it with springlike things: allergies and short pants.
One glance at this graph (or the previous years' versions of it), and I see two things:
Oscars Always a Hit on the Web
Sometimes, when I look at Alexa's Movers and Shakers, I discover some hip new site everyone's clicking on.
And sometimes, I look at the graph and realize, oh, yeah, the Oscars just happened.
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