Alexa is a tool for looking at how your website is doing across the web, so to speak, the lower the number the better on the raking score. One of the first things Mega Web Commerce Affiliate www.CJ.com looks at is your Alexa score. Go to www.alexa.com and  install your url into the search box and your score will be displayed. You can submit reviews and see what others have said.
 
Founded in April 1996, Alexa Internet grew out of a vision of Web navigation that is intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users.

Alexa's version 1.0 toolbar was first released in September of 1997. The toolbar featured Site Information, access to archived pages, access to Encyclopedia Britannica content, and an instant messaging feature. In 1998, Netscape built Alexa into the 4.0 version of the Netscape Navigator browser as the centerpiece of the "Smart Browsing" feature set. Meanwhile, the Alexa toolbar had clocked over 1 Million downloads. Alexa began a long partnership with the Library of Congress, donating a copy of Alexa's crawl of the web to the new digital library. In 1999, following Netscape's lead, Microsoft built Alexa into the browser. Alexa popularity was reaching an all-time high with over 3 Million downloads. In June of 1999, Amazon.com purchased Alexa Internet. In 2000, Alexa released the version 5.0 toolbar, incorporating shopping features and search functions. Total downloads exceeded 7 million. Alexa's donations of crawl to the Internet Archive 8 Terabytes in size (about 6 million floppy disks.)

In 2001, Alexa released Alexa Toolbar 6.0, incorporating a new sleeker design, and the Wayback button. Alexa's crawl donations to the Internet Archive surpassed the 100 terabyte mark. All pages were fully indexed and made available in the Wayback Machine, which is now the largest database in the World. The Wayback Machine, built by Alexa Internet for the Internet Archive, was named the site of the year by Yahoo Internet Life magazine.

In May of 2002 Alexa released Alexa Web Search and Alexa Toolbar version 6.5. By partnering with Google, Alexa has built a new kind of search engine, one that helps users collaborate and find the best sites, with less effort. Alexa's crawl donations to the Internet Archive have now surpassed the 200 terabyte mark.

At Alexa we are always striving to bring you new and improved services to help make your online searching and surfing easier. We'll try to keep a running log of the recent changes posted here.

October 10, 2002
We have two new releases today, both for Alexa Toolbar users. First, we have introduced the new "Startup Hints" feature. Every now and then, when you start up your browser, your toolbar may look a little different... it will feature one of many handy tips to help you make the most of your toolbar. We hope you find these hints helpful, but if not, they are a snap to turn off -- just visit the Alexa Toolbar Options page, available in your Alexa menu. Second, we are introducing Search Customization, a new feature that allows toolbar users to customize the layout of the search results. You can can choose the number of site thumbnails to show, include traffic rankings in the search results, and more. Look for this feature in your Alexa Toolbar Options page. September 20, 2002 Traffic graphs are here! Now you can see daily traffic rank history going back one year for every site on the web. The graphs are located on the site detail pages. Just click the link labeled "Trends" in the navigation menu (upper left side of the page.) Take a look at an example trend graph for hoovers.com

Search Engine: Alexa is now a Search Engine, with world class Google results coupled with Alexa's site information and Amazon.com look and feel. We are pretty excited about it and think you will be too. Traffic Rankings: Alexa has a new Traffic Rankings feature where we compare sites to one another. It is a convenient way to see multiple competing sites side by side. We hope to have many more enhancements to this feature coming soon. The Missing Link: We have enlisted the writing talents of Charles Pappas, the "Surf Guru" of Yahoo Internet Life, to write a weekly column about the Internet. Look forward to a weekly e-mail newsletter... details to come.

Site Details: You may have noticed the Alexa's web site hosting details pages look a lot like Amazon.com. Well that should not be a great surprise to most people who are aware that we are actually owned by Amazon.com. This is part of an evolutionary process of bringing the Alexa services into a common look and feel with our parent company Amazon.com. Alexa Toolbar 6.5 Beta: Finally, the long-awaited Alexa Toolbar 6.5 is here! This new toolbar incorporates our new Alexa Web Search (see above) plus some other nifty features. And, it is smaller and faster than the previous version.