Alexa Internet, Inc. was an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.
Alexa was founded as an independent company in 1996 and acquired by Amazon in 1999 for 250millioninstock.Alexaprovidedwebtrafficdata,globalrankings,andotherinformationonover30millionwebsites.AlexaestimatedwebsitetrafficbasedonasampleofmillionsofInternetusersusingbrowserextensionsaswellasfromsitesthathadchosentoinstallanAlexascript.Asof2020,itswebsitewasvisitedbyover400millionpeopleeverymonth.InDecember2021,AmazonannouncedthatitwouldbeshuttingdownitsAlexaInternetsubsidiary.TheservicewasthendiscontinuedonMay1,2022.AlexaInternetwasfoundedinApril1996byBrewsterKahleandBruceGilliat.Thecompany′snamewaschoseninhomagetotheLibraryofAlexandriainPtolemaicEgypt,drawingaparallelbetweenthelargestrepositoryofknowledgeintheancientworldandthepotentialoftheInternettobecomeasimilarstoreofknowledge.AlexainitiallyofferedatoolbarthatgaveInternetuserssuggestionsonwheretogonextbasedonthetrafficpatternsofitsusercommunity.Thecompanyalsoofferedcontextforeachsitevisited:towhomitwasregistered,howmanypagesithad,howmanyothersitespointedtoit,andhowfrequentlyitwasupdated.Alexa′soperationsgrewtoincludethearchivingofwebpagesastheyare"crawled"andexaminedbyanautomatedcomputerprogram(nicknameda"bot"or"webcrawler").ThisdatabaseservedasthebasisforthecreationoftheInternetArchive,accessiblethroughtheWaybackMachine.In1998,thecompanydonatedacopyofthearchive,twoterabytesinsize,totheLibraryofCongress.AlexacontinuedtosupplytheInternetArchivewithwebcrawls.In1999,asthecompanymovedawayfromitsoriginalvisionofprovidingan"intelligent"searchengine,AlexawasacquiredbyAmazon.comforapproximatelyUS250 million in Amazon stock.