Blog Rankings?

For years Alexa has provided traffic rankings for Web sites from aarp.org to zappos.com. Then, about five years ago we created some special rules so that we could provide rankings for homepages on sites like geocities and tripod. These rules allowed people to write reviews of their favorite personal homepages, compare traffic rankings, create related links and more.

But we never created similar rules for the blog hosting sites. Sure, you could get a traffic ranking for a blog if it happened to be hosted with its own domain name -- sites like wonkette.com or kottke.org. But, if you were Attu (attu.blogspot.com) you were out of luck. The best you could get was the ranking for your host, blogspot.com, but not for your own blog.

But now that is changing: Alexa is ranking individual blogs.

Go to you favorite blog, click the "Site Info" button on your Alexa toolbar and check it out. You can see rankings, related links and more for your blogs.

There are still a few wrinkles to iron out. For example, you can't review blogs yet. We are also adding to our list of known blog hosts... if we aren't ranking your individual blog, let us know about it and we will do our best to track it too.

Another change is that we are actually counting blog and homepage traffic twice... once for the individual blog or homepage, and again for the host. If you take a look at Geocities traffic history graph you are going to see a HUGE jump in traffic starting today. This is because all the traffic that was previously only counted toward the homepages is now also counted toward the host.

All the usual disclaimers about the traffic rankings apply particularly to blogs and personal homepages which will overwhelmingly fall outside of Alexa's Top 100,000. Caveats abound here. In short, if you fall outside the Top 100,000, you may want to take your rankings with a grain of salt.

Enjoy!

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E-Tailing Kicks Into High Gear

Alexa's Movers and Shakers are beginning to show the holiday spirit. Or should I say rampant consumerism spirit? Either way, it is clear that online holiday shopping has begun in earnest. Just take a look at the movers.

• Walmart - up 105% - Traffic Details
• Best Buy - up 83% - Traffic Details
• Circuit City - up 91% - Traffic Details
• ShopLocal - up 189% - Traffic Details
• Target - up 56% - Traffic Details
• Radio Shack - up 101% - Traffic Details

Don't confuse the list above with the most popular shopping sites on the web. For a list of those, look no further than Alexa's Sites in Shopping category.

Happy shopping.

Microsoft Live (Rhymes with Dive)

Microsoft launched their new Microsoft Live service earlier this week, sending live.com briefly into the Top 1000. So, what is Live? If you listen to the hype, it is a whole new web-centric business model that will single handedly topple Google and Yahoo's Web dominance.

But, I don't listen too well. Take a look at live.com. It might be a new business for Microsoft, but it is nothing new to me or you. We have all seen this service before. In fact, here it was seven years ago (link), only it was called my.yahoo.com, and it had a better interface.

Microsoft also announced future releases of its Office products via their Live service. You will be able to access MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint directly from the Web, and be able to spell- check words like vaporware without downloading and installing their bloated, er, I mean, large applications.

So, why is it news? Because sometimes old dogs learn new tricks. Instead of playing dead, Microsoft has perked up and gotten into the game with its younger and more nimble Web competitors. Still, to stretch this metaphor a little too far, this dog's all bark and no bite.

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Vote Today

Just a quick note to remind all of our U.S. readers that today is election day. Don't forget to vote.

Can't remember what's on the ballot? Visit lwv.org, click on your state, and find your local League of Women Voters. In California the LWV put up SmartVoter.org which allows me to type in my zip code and see my ballot, find my polling place and read arguments for and against the politicians and initiatives. After some more digging using Alexa's Related Links feature, I also found Project Vote Smart, which appears to provide the same features nationally.

Wondering if you can get time off to vote? Check out the Voter Leave Laws in your state.

Now, get out there and vote!

Man Sentenced in Phishing Scam

With yesterday's announcement of the conviction and sentencing of a British man on charges stemming from his phishing scam, in which he stole personal financial information from 160 people and stole $360,000, it is a good time to remind users how to steer clear of the phishers. Link to news story.

First, what is phishing? Do you ever get those mysterious e-mails from E-Bay, PayPal or Chase bank that ask you to update your account information... except you don't have an account there? That is a phishing scam. Basically, a spammer, gets your e-mail address and sends you an official looking e-mail asking you to update your account information.

If you are naiive enough to click the link in the e-mail, it will take you to a site that is designed to look like the company's official site and will usually be hosted on a site that on first glance looks genuine. For example, you will be on http://www.yafoo.com. Or you will be on http://chase.1297-4b21.com, which would appear to be a Yahoo site and Chase site, respectively, unless you are looking closely and/or know what to look for.

Be careful. The phishers are out there and they want your money. Your best bet is to be diligent. Treat your personal information on Internet the same way you'd treat your wallet at Mardi Gras. I recommend reading Wikipedia's tips for avoiding phishing scams, here.

Stay safe.