Alexa - Web Discovery Machine

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 a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." [That link is a PDF.]

As a San Francisco resident, I was keenly aware of the intense feelings on both sides of the debate over Proposition 8. Because I'm in San Francisco, most of what I heard was from the No on 8 side. This, to be clear, is yes to same-sex marriages, but no to the amendment to the constitution--confused yet? I happen to know gay people who were in support of same-sex marriage, but voted yes on the proposition by mistake--they're kinda feeling a bit queasy for not reading the ballot a bit more carefully.

What I find interesting is that it was a surprise to many of us that the proposition passed. Then, though, in discussions over time, it became clear that the No on 8 people did not do enough to educate the general population. Not only did they manage to leave some not voting the way they thought they were, but the campaign did not do nearly enough outreach. Perhaps it's because the proponents of same-sex marriage simply couldn't believe it was necessary to work harder. And they were outspent for a good while. The Yes on 8 people hit the ground running and did not let up. And they prevailed.

I think a fairly clear illustration of this point can be seen by comparing the traffic to the two central websites on the issue, noonprop8.com and protectmarriage.com. The victorious proponents of the proposition had so many more eyeballs. I don't even watch television, but they had banner ads all over the web. I suppose it's just proof that if you work hard and push your message, you'll get some traffic to your website. For some Californians, it's a painful reminder that you have aggressively pursue what you want.

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, which I like to call Hot URLs.

One of the most rewarding things about using and working for Alexa is the way the Toolbar is a two-way street. Each member of the community, in addition to getting a useful tool, is giving back. Now, we're all pitching in to identify specific pages that are blazing to the top of the charts. Every five minutes, we determine the most popular pages visited by our Toolbar users during the last hour, and update a list of What's Hot on the Web Right Now.

So, on a busy morning at the office, I could take a quick break to look at the Alexa homepage and learn that Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck had a heated exchange over Veteran's Day on The View. (You'll be relieved to know Whoopi intervened and moved the show along.)

One thing I've learned as we've been preparing the What's Hot on the Web feature to go live is that there's something for everyone. And seeing what's going viral as it happens, therefore scooping your friends, is highly addictive.

Let us know what you think of the new feature in the comments. And, of course, if you think we're missing the really hot stuff, be sure to download the Alexa Toolbar and start feeding us your tips.

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 Lists that does not appear anywhere on Alexa.com. In response to your requests, our Top Sites Lists include Unique Monthly User estimates and Monthly Pageview estimates. How do you compare with your competitors? Which acquisition proposition will bring the most eyeballs your way? With our new lists, the answer is one CSV file away.

While Alexa's website provides Traffic Rank data for all sites on the web, many of our customers asked for estimates of unique users and pageviews. Well, here you are. We still have the Global Top 500 and Top 100 by Language or Country accessible for free on our site. But if you want some solid estimates of visitors and pageviews, you can buy global lists of up to the Top 100,000 sites with data available only in those lists, and nowhere else on Alexa.com.

And we didn't even raise the price.

So, whether you're scoping out ad buys or looking for prospective clients; whether you are considering acquisitions or weighing partnerships, you can now base your digital decisions on additional data points with our new, improved Top Sites Lists.

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, when Christopher Buckley, the son of the late uber-conservative William F. Buckley, posted a column on The Daily Beast announcing his intention to vote for Barack Obama, the Democrat. As he explained, he chose The Daily Beast because he thought it would be safer than his regular gig at the National Review Online--he was certain he'd receive tons of hate mail if he posted it there. Well, it did result in the National Review dropping his column. But it also resulted in many people visiting, for the first time, The Daily Beast. Scoop!

Another recent site that came to my attention while I was chasing traffic spikes was Street Prophets, a relatively small blog (and part of the Daily Kos community) on politics and faith. What appeared to drive the increase in traffic to the site was an image that alleged of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, "Finally, a beauty queen who doesn't want world peace."

Similarly, I had not personally been aware of the news blog African Press International, which saw a jump in traffic after publishing an allegedly fake interview with Michelle Obama.


I suppose my all-time favorite spike in traffic related to an election-year scoop of sorts was that in early August to the website Funny or Die. While the site frequently has a viral hit, the surge to a scripted announcement by Paris Hilton of her own political aspirations in response to John McCain's ad about Barack Obama's celebrity. Putting that one on the graph makes the others seem like mere blips.

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 Chronicle.

You might say there were some folks who visited No Wall Street Bailout and Stop the Housing Bailout during the time when the bills were under consideration. So many that they shot up into short periods of ranking in the top sixty thousand or even near the top twenty thousand sites worldwide.

As an aside, I'd like to share a resource I found helpful when trying to wrap my brain around the bailout and preceding mortgage crisis. National Public Radio's This American Life ran a story in May called "The Giant Pool of Money." It explains the fairly complicated matters in plain language, and was so helpful to so many as to have been the focus of an article in The New York Times. Among the careful walk-through of the crisis with financial experts, the program has interviews with some of the people who were raking in money hand over fist by pushing bad dangerous mortgages on Americans. The program just aired a follow-up that's similarly lucid, only this one's on the bailout: "Another Frightening Show About the Economy."

Have you found resources online or offline that were helpful as you attempted to understand the recent economic stories? Feel free to enlighten us in the comments.

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 seriously.

I've been visiting FactCheck.org every couple of days. The advantage of a non-partisan organization de-spinning candidates' statements is a gift from the Internet Age. This site's Reach has increased 114% when you compare the last three months of traffic to the previous three. Predictably, spiked occur when big political events happen, such as the recent Presidential Debate. Posted the day after the debate, FactCheck's blow-by-blow breakdown of the misleading or erroneous statements of both candidates has apparently been of use to many other than myself.

Another election-year resource on the web that I've found handy is Project Vote Smart's website. This site aggregates all sorts of hard data about lawmakers: public statements, voting records, biographical information, campaign finances, and ratings of various interest groups to name a few. Though their Voter's Self-Defense Manual has been and continues to be an invaluable paper resource, the website provides a bounty of information about all things politics. Their Reach has increased 318% in the second half of the past six months.

Of course, for those political junkies who need a daily fix of if-the-election-were-held-today, there are at least two sites (thanks, Related Links) dealing with the electoral college map. I knew about Electoral-vote.com, but have identified 270ToWin.com as a competing site. While each of them predicts an Obama victory at this stage of the game, based on state-by-state polling data, they have some different ideas about the likely/possible vote count.

Which sites do you find indispensable in the quest for election facts and fun? Do their Related Links lead to new favorites?

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 benefit of the related links and start to discover more content on the web that you may find interesting. Just go to your favorite site, look at your toolbar, and see what's related; click it, and go.

If you use Alexa for more serious pursuits, such as identifying competition or planning a marketing campaign, you will find that the related links are much more on target than before. To see the related links you should either install an Alexa Toolbar, or you can go to an Alexa detail page for any site and click "Related Links".

[The above was written by Geoff Mack. Below is an addendum by Kelly Dragoo.]

Sometimes, there's just as much fun happening just a click away of which you're not even aware. I'm a big fan, for example, of lolcats. Especially since I got a puppy of my own, I take immense pleasure in photos of pets with funny, misspelled text. Imagine my joy, upon testing the new Related Links for ICanHasCheezburger, at discovering I Has a Hot Dog! Thank you, Related Links!

I also love catty commentary on celebrities and pop culture. I've been a long-time fan of The Fug Girls, but their Related Links have given me a new obsession: The Superficial. (I'll bet my boss, Geoff who wrote the above, is thrilled that our new, improved Related Links have given me more ways to goof off at my desk!)

Of course, not all of life is funny photos of pets. With the coming U.S. presidential election in November, I have been following a lot of political and news sites, trying to separate the spin from the facts. I have made frequent use of FactCheck, a non-partisan resource for distilling politics to something closer to reality than campaign promises. However, since last time I found it helpful, I had completely forgotten about OpenSecrets.org; this likewise nonpartisan site is immensely helpful when it comes to following the money that influences policy and elections, and I was reminded of it in FactCheck's Related Links. But I didn't even know about another Related Link Electoral-vote.com. This website predicts electoral votes for each state based on polling data. They even have a page comparing this day in 2008 to the same day in 2004--the possibilities for nail-biting are endless!

So whether you use them for work or for play, give the new Related Links a whirl and let us know what you think.