Alexa makes the Web history
By Alex Lash
July 9, 1997, 1:05 p.m. PT
Confused or swamped Web surfers will soon have
yet another tool at their disposal as the Alexa Internet Web navigation
service goes into beta next week.
The new service is run by the creators of the Internet Archive, a project
that aims to document and store Web pages, Usenet records, and shareware
for the historical record.
The Alexa client is a toolbar that sits at the bottom of a browser as the
user surfs the Web. Once downloaded and installed, the Alexa client will
use a bot to analyze each Web site visited. The information it gathers
will then be displayed on the toolbar. Alexa will relate information on
the site's traffic, where the site is physically located, the number of
pages it contains, and when the site was last updated, according to a
company spokesperson.
Alexa will also display relevant links to other sites by analyzing the
paths of previous visitors. Alexa will add the URLs it analyzes to the
Internet Archive.
The software will be available to download for free from the Alexa Web
site. The company would not comment on how it plans to bring in revenue.