Alexa Internet, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, has launched the Alexa Top Sites web service on the Amazon Web Services web site. The Alexa Top Sites web service provides software and web developers with programmatic access to lists of web sites ordered by Alexa Traffic Rank, which represents one of the largest samples of Internet usage available. This data can be used by developers for a wide-range of products and services like prioritizing aggregated information on a web site and building products that help businesses make decisions such as where to most effectively advertise.

"Alexa is constantly looking at the enormous amount of information we collect about the web to find sets of data that we believe will help developers build products for the customers they already have or want to have in the future," said Alexa Product Manager Geoff Mack. "The new Alexa Top Sites web service is the latest result of this effort. Developers can now build web applications and products using one of the world's most credible samples of web usage. We can't wait to see what developers build with this data."

Using the Alexa Top Sites web service, developers can programmatically request, receive, and incorporate into their applications Alexa Traffic Rankings on a worldwide basis or by specific country. In addition to its Alexa Traffic Rank, the service provides information about each site's number of page views per million users, average page views per user, and the number of Alexa users. Whether seeking the top 100,000 web sites in the world, or the top 1,000 in the U.S., the Alexa Top Sites web service allows developers to programmatically receive rankings for web sites in over 70 countries. Developers can request any set of rankings they would like, and will be charged a fee of only $0.0025 per web site URL they request and receive from the web service. Before the launch of this service, developers seeking programmatic access to a ranked list needed to request Alexa Traffic Ranking data on a per-site basis and compile the rankings themselves.


Alexa Traffic Rankings are based on the anonymous usage patterns of millions of Alexa Toolbar users based around the world. Site rankings are updated daily and based on a combined measure of reach and page views computed over a rolling three-month period. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day; page views are the total number of pages viewed by Alexa users. The site with the highest combination of reach and page views is ranked first.

"We are excited to have another compelling web service from Alexa available to the Amazon Web Services community of developers," said Adam Selipsky, Vice President of Product Management and Developer Relations for Amazon Web Services. "This is the latest example of powerful and low cost offerings being built by Amazon and its subsidiaries, and offered through Amazon Web Services."