Earlier this month Alexa (now owned by Amazon) rolled out Alexa Web Information Service, providing developers with access to its repository of information about the Web. This could be a very useful source of metadata about URLs for semantic web applications and machine learning applications. Some of the services are:

• Access to information about Web sites including traffic data, contact info and related links.
• Access an XML-based search index based on Alexa’s Web crawl.
• Access to Alexa’s enhanced DMOZ-based browse service.
• Access to Alexa’s WebMap to gather links-in and links-out information about URLs.

Several sites already using AWIS are described:

“In your travels you may have noticed Alexa data popping up in unexpected places across the Web — on AdBrite, before you buy an ad you can see the seller’s traffic rank, on HitsLink you can get Alexa data about your site’s referrers, on IceRocket you get Alexa data in your search results.”

You have to register to use the service. The first 10K requests per month are free and after that it’s $0.15 for 1,000 requests

Related posts: • Building your own search engine with Alexa;  • Photo sharing made easy;  • Models of trust for the Web;  

Posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2005 at 12:45 pm in categories [Blogging, Semantic Web, Web]. Comments feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site. edit