
This database served as the basis for the creation of the Internet Archive accessible through the Wayback Machine.

Īlexa's operations grew to include archiving of web pages as they are "crawled" and examined by an automated computer program (nicknamed a "bot" or "web crawler"). 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 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's name was chosen in homage to the Library of Alexandria of 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. Operations and history 1996–1999 Īlexa Internet was founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat. In December 2021, Amazon announced that it would be shutting down its Alexa Internet subsidiary. As of 2020, its website was visited by over 400 million people every month.
#ELEXA TRACKING PEOPLE INSTALL#
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. Alexa provided web traffic data, global rankings, and other information on over 30 million websites. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.Īlexa was founded as an independent company in 1996 and acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million in stock. was an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco.
