Amazon Alexa SEO Tools will be closed

Alexa.com has announced that it will end its marketing services after 25 years. Alexa was founded in 1996 and taken over by Amazon in 1999. It was originally known to provide rankings based on traffic measured on a toolbar, but Alexa eventually expanded to include a full suite of marketing products, including site auditing and backlink checking.

Screenshot from Alexa Content Marketing

Alexa Rank

Alexa.com offers a full suite of search engine marketing tools. But what it is mostly known for is their Alexa rank.

Alexa Rank is a metric used to measure website popularity.

In the early 2000s, the data was collected through an Alexa toolbar that users were used to download and browse. The toolbars collected web traffic information from the users, which was fed into the Alexa Rank site’s popularity metric.

Web publishers could also install a script on their website that reports the traffic that could then be used to increase their Alexa rankings.

The Alexa Rank Scores were generally viewed with suspicion as some people claimed that installing the toolbar and visiting your own sites could result in a dramatic increase in the Alexa Rank Score.

Another criticism of Alexa Rank was that the data is more relevant for Asian countries than for English-speaking countries. This was based on rumor that the Alexa toolbar’s usage base was heavily geared towards users in Korea rather than users in English speaking countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

The negative reputation of Alexa Rank and everything that Alexa offers was sealed in 2005.

A search engine marketer noted in a 2005 forum discussion:

“Isn’t it time for Amazon Alexa to throw in the towel? For a company that does so many things well, Alexa really is a shame on its reputation. Why should they want to be associated with such garbage. “

Even so, the Alexa Rank metric continues to be used by a decreasing number of search engine marketers.

To date, for example, there are some companies that offer affiliate programs and use Alexa Rank to determine the popularity of potential affiliate partners and do not accept affiliates whose websites do not meet a minimum acceptance threshold for Alexa Rank.

Alexa was more than a ranking metric for website popularity

It may surprise many that Alexa offers a complete suite of search marketing and analysis programs.

For some reason, the Alexa suite of online marketing tools, which included a backlink checker, was kept almost secret with no apparently reaching the search marketing community or apparently no significant promotional activity.

Alexa scoured the entire internet and provided snapshots of the internet to Archive.org for many years. The backlink information was extensive.

Because of this, it was able to offer services such as showing the common backlinks of competitors, including up to ten competitors at a time.

Screenshot of an Alexa backlink information page

The Alexa $ 149 / month plan offered:

• Content exploration
• Competitive content analysis
• Thematic research
• Top publishers by topic
• Competitive analysis
• Competitor Keyword Matrix
• Keyword Difficulty Tool
• Keyword share of voice
• Organic keywords
• Paid keywords
• Site audits
• On-Page SEO Checker
• Backlink checker for competitors
• Backlink checks
• Target group analysis

Alexa.com retired

Alexa announced that everything will go away on May 1st, 2022.

The announcement was brief and without explanation, which led to the decision.

“We founded Alexa Internet 25 years ago. After two decades of helping find, reach, and convert your digital audiences, we made the tough decision to discontinue Alexa.com on May 1, 2022.

Thank you for making us your preferred resource for content research, competitive analysis, keyword research, and more. “

Alexa offered a powerful suite of SEO and marketing tools and it’s sad they are going away.

Lots of people didn’t know about the tools and maybe they would still exist if they had been better promoted.

Quotes

Official Alexa.com announcement

We will be discontinuing Alexa.com on May 1st, 2022

Archive.org snapshot of Alexa.com’s search marketing offerings

Archive.org snapshot of the Alexa Backlink Checker Tool