Alexa by Amazon is shutting down on May 1, 2022. Founded in 1996, it was a startup focused on web analytics tool. Amazon acquired the company in 1999 for more than $250 Million in stock. Finally this 25 years old company is closing in 2022. I feel the pain of Alexa SEO Tool Shutdown news.
Let’s revisit the historic facts and interesting stories related to Alexa. Many publishers around the globe must of feeling heart broken after this news.
Alexa was mainly famous ins the community for Site Info tool and Alexa Rank. Publishers and website owners used to track their Alexa Rank to know the popularity of the website. Alexa ranking depends on the incoming traffic on the website.
Alexa Site Info used to track the following details about any website for free.
- Alexa Rank
- Organic Traffic
- Bounce Rate
- Popular Article
- Geo Location of Traffic Source
- Keyword Gap
- Keyword Opportunity
- Competitor’s Keyword Ranking Analysis
- Time of Website
- Pageviews
The traffic stats was coming mainly because of the use of Alexa Toolbar. It was available as Firefox or Chrome extension. Webmasters or publishers used to install the toolbar on their browser to track the realtime stats.
Why Alexa Is Shutting down?
There were so manu negative reviews and feedback about the way Alexa tracks traffic stats. As I said earlier, Alexa Toolbar was one of the source through which Alexa was tracking traffic stats. Many webmasters used to fake the traffic by reloading the page multiple times.
They used to show fake stats by playing bad tricks with toolbar.
Publishers in Asian countries were used to have high ranking on Alexa. Many webmasters highlighted this issue and that’s where Alexa lost reputation in English speaking countries. That could be one reason behind Alexa being shutdown.
What will happen to Paid Accounts?
Alexa stopped taking any pro membership. If you are already having a Pro account, it will remain active till May 1, 2022. You can export your data from the tool anytime now.
Closing of Alexa is Heart Breaking
Here are 6 reasons why this news of Alexa by Amazon shutting down is a bad news.
- Emotional Attachment
- Alexa Toolbar users must feel the pain. We used to check Alexa rank almost everyday. Webmasters in 2005 – 2010 era will feel the pain.
- Site Info for Competition Analysis
- No site info tool now.
- Keyword Gap Analysis
- No Domain Flipping Alexa Stats
- While selling a domain or website, we used to highlight Alexa Rank of the site. Now if this is closed, we won’t be able to show the same. Time to highlight Google Analytics traffic.
- Important Part of Web Analytics Module
- In our online digital marketing course, we used to teach Alexa as a website traffic analysis tool. Now it’s gone and we lost that tool in our curriculum.
- Question on Third-Party Traffic Stats Tools
Well, Digital Marketing is a dynamic field. Every time you will see an old tool closing down and a new one in market. That’s the beauty of this industry. you need to keep yourself updated and ready for new learning.
Alternatives like Similarweb will definitely get more popularity now. It is going to get more subscribers who were using Alexa for any website traffic stats. For competition analysis and research, many people were using Alexa but now it’s time to end it.
What is your thought about Alexa closing down? Have you used Alexa Site Info earlier for rank tracking? Did you try Alexa Toolbar to keep eye on your Alexa Rank? Share your emotional relation with Alexa and how do you feel about the it ending next year. Comment area is all your.
