More URLs Gone Wild...

In our ongoing series of URLs gone wild, here are the hottest URLs on the Web right now, based on the last 5 minutes of traffic:

5.79	Urbina sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempted murder
4.80	Yahoo TV!
4.74	San Francisco passes plastic-bag ban
4.69	World's tallest man ties knot
4.53	Home is where the heart is for world's tallest man
4.42	Wynonna Judd files for divorce after husband's arrest on sex charges
4.30	Sky News: Iran Proof To Be Published
4.00	Mysterious hexagon spotted above Saturn
3.94	Report: Urbina sentenced to 14 years in prison
3.87	Fit for a king: LeBron's house to have theater, casino
3.74	Writers lose 'Da Vinci Code' fight

Alexaholic/Statsaholic

Last year Ron Hornbaker started a website called Alexaholic.com that displayed Alexa traffic graphs. This website very clearly misappropriated the Alexa name, which isn't something that Alexa tolerates under any circumstances. We reached out to Mr. Hornbaker last year in an attempt to resolve the problem amicably. We even explored an acquisition, which we didn't have to do. Unfortunately, it became clear over time that Mr. Hornbaker did not want to stop trading off the Alexa name. This left Alexa with no alternative but to bring legal action to recover the misappropriated name. Even that action did not stop Mr. Hornbaker. Now, in what amounts to an apparent admission that Alexa has a right to its name, Mr. Hornbaker has renamed Alexaholic, calling it "Statsaholic." But he is still trading off the Alexa brand by using the Alexaholic domain to direct traffic to his new URL. Furthermore, Mr. Hornbaker is in fact not using our web service to generate the traffic graphs on his website. Instead of obtaining the traffic data for a fee using the API which Alexa offers, he has chosen to pirate proprietary Alexa data by taking Alexa traffic graphs without permission. Mr. Hornbaker is now trying to extract more value from Alexa by turning this into a PR issue, which he admits is a deliberate strategy.

Alexa doesn't take the decision to bring legal action lightly but will do so when required. We'll pursue this issue aggressively and intend to recover the Alexaholic URL and to ensure that Mr. Hornbaker is held accountable for misappropriating our graphs and data.

Traffic graph goes front and center

Over the last few years Alexa's traffic graphs have become the most popular feature on our site. Folks just can't seem to get enough of those traffic trends. So today we bow to the wishes of our users and place the Alexa traffic graph front and center on our site.

More URLs Gone Wild!

We've been playing with some of our technology here and have a nifty little tool that can tell us at any given time what the hottest URLs are on Web. It is sort of like a Movers and Shakers, but it is based on just the last 5 minutes of traffic and shows URLs, rather than sites. I'm hooked.

Here are the hottest URLs on the Web, right now:

5.79	Airbus A380 makes 1st flight to America - Yahoo! News
3.46	YouTube - Vote Different
3.39	Mercedes' fish-inspired car - CNN.com
3.16	And the YouTube award goes to... - CNN.com
3.16	Menu Foods Income Fund - Annual General Meeting

URLs Gone Wild! Fun Stuff for the Weekend.

It has been a while since I've posted in the blog so I went digging around to see if I could find some interesting tidbits for all of you to chew on over the weekend.

1) What is the most popular article on Wikipedia right now? Link #2? Link
2) What is the most popular article on Conservapedia right now? Link #2? Link

Discuss... ;-)

What are the 5 hottest URLs for Alexa Toolbar users right now?
1) NCAA Basketball Scorecard
2) `Survivor' Hatch on prison: `horrendous'
3) AIDS cure or sick joke by African president?
4) If consoles were girls
5) Girls chant ‘kill him’ as gang chases schoolboy then stabs him to death

Ouch. That last one wasn't so fun.

What are the 5 hottest Search Terms for Alexa Toolbar users over the last week?
1) Spring Break
2) 300
3) Richard Jeni
4) Cricket World Cup
5) Carrie Underwood

Have a good weekend.

Get a Custom Tee With Your Stats

Just for fun we added a new feature to Alexa... get a custom T-Shirt featuring your site's stats.

Link