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We will be retiring Alexa.com

support.alexa.com

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Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#71

Post by duskwuff »

ralusek wrote: post #40
input_sh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to have its own toolbar that tracked which websites users visit. After that, they've paid other browser add-ons to add their script and some websites voluntarily gave them their data by adding their tracker. It says so right on the about page (warning: unusable on mobile): https://www.alexa.com/about

You'd assume that this would give a super biased sample of the population that would skew boomer+.

It was always biased, and it's only gotten worse over time as browser toolbars have ceased to be a thing and data collection in browser extensions has been heavily discouraged. I have to wonder if that's one of the reasons they're phasing the product out.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#72

Post by amysox »

gonehome wrote: post #12
oblio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short, international, neutral name, somewhat easy to pronounce in many languages.

It's also phonetically recognizable and distinct. It's one of the reasons you have to say "Hey Google" or "Hey Siri", but you're able to just say "Alexa" I find Siri the worst one for that, it often triggers on "serious".

Yes, this is why we can't talk about Alexa at home. My roommate and I, if we're not talking to it, refer to it as "the A bitch." :D

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#73

Post by amysox »

mwcampbell wrote: post #19
gonehome wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also phonetically recognizable and distinct. It's one of the reasons you have to say "Hey Google" or "Hey Siri", but you're able to just say "Alexa" I find Siri the worst one for that, it often triggers on "serious".

Except that when my business partner and I are talking to each other about Alexa, we have to refer to it indirectly, e.g. "the A-lady", to avoid triggering his Alexa devices (I don't normally have one active).

As mentioned above, to my roommate and me, it's "the A bitch." :D

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#74

Post by kzrdude »

jlelse wrote: post #44
speedgoose wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 must provide great data. It's not publicly available though. https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/privacy/public-dns... (CloudFlare stores aggregated data) https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy (well, it's Google)

Cloudflare has Radar: https://radar.cloudflare.com/

I don't understand how apple.com can rank over youtube.com? In what way is apple a daily service that people must access? I guess some apple service that I don't use like music?

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#75

Post by cmeacham98 »

Retric wrote: post #23
oblio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short, international, neutral name, somewhat easy to pronounce in many languages.

It’s also been a popular name for decades, http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Alexa-name-popularity.html . IMO, picking one of the most common US names for a voice assistant and then skipping the wake up phrase is dumb.

I know it's not perfect, but if you use Amazon's Alexa and know an Alexa you can change the wake phrase to a few others (iirc "echo" and "amazon" are among the choices).

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#76

Post by tonymet »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #14

Wow, that is a bummer! Alexa is my go-to place to get a first impression on how much traffic a website gets. I have never looked into how they get their data, I always assumed they get it from internet providers? Is there an alternative? SimilarWeb publishes their data with a huge delay, so it is not of much use for me. From my experience, it is also less reliable. It is crazy how valuable internet properties get clo…

they had a browser toolbar to collect user agent signals

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#77

Post by VRay »

afavour wrote: post #42
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also been a popular name for decades, http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Alexa-name-popularity.html . IMO, picking one of the most common US names for a voice assistant and then skipping the wake up phrase is dumb.

Yeah I have a friend called Alexa and it absolutely infuriates her. Can't say I blame her.

At least you can change the wake word on Amazon devices

All Apple devices interpret "Hey Sarah" as "Hey Siri" and then start shooting their stupid mouths off, bugs the hell out of Sarah

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#78

Post by quesera »

kzrdude wrote: post #74
jlelse wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare has Radar: https://radar.cloudflare.com/

I don't understand how apple.com can rank over youtube.com? In what way is apple a daily service that people must access? I guess some apple service that I don't use like music?

Just a guess, but Apple devices hit Apple services fairly regularly, each requiring a DNS lookup.

1.1.1.1 is Cloudflare's public DNS service.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#79

Post by cosmojg »

togilvie wrote: post #69
0xcoffee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also interesting doubleverify.com is ranked 14th, the first I did not hear of. Quickly looked them up, some sort of anti-fraud company, working with TikTok apparently. There website doesn't load for me, I'm wondering if they are target of DDOS attack which might actually move them up the rankings haha

It's an ad tracker. It's loading in ads that people see, but isn't the source website generating the traffic.

Ah, that makes sense. I take it that its name is a play on "DoubleClick"?

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#80

Post by mardifoufs »

kzrdude wrote: post #74
jlelse wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare has Radar: https://radar.cloudflare.com/

I don't understand how apple.com can rank over youtube.com? In what way is apple a daily service that people must access? I guess some apple service that I don't use like music?

Probably apple telemetry. At least some of the phoning home is done using apple.com as a domain so it can add up very quickly. If anything I'm surprised the top domains aren't just telemetry endpoints, but I guess telemetry is a good use case for bare IPs so it doesn't show up as much on DNS analytics.
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