Alexa

Alexa History
1996
Founded in April 1996, Alexa Internet grew out of a vision of Web navigation that is intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users.
1997
September of 1997 the Alexa Toolbar version 1.0 was released. The toolbar featured Site Information, Related Links, access to archived pages, access to Encyclopaedia Britannica content, and an instant messaging feature.
1998
In 1998, Netscape built Alexa into the 4.0 version of the Netscape Navigator browser as the centerpiece of the "Smart Browsing" feature set. Meanwhile, the Alexa toolbar had clocked over 1 Million downloads. Alexa began a long partnership with the Library of Congress, donating a copy of Alexa's crawl of the web to the new digital library.
1999
In 1999, following Netscape's lead, Microsoft built Alexa into the browser. Alexa popularity was reaching an all-time high with over 3 Million downloads. In June of 1999, Amazon.com purchased Alexa Internet.
2000
In 2000, Alexa released the version 5.0 toolbar, incorporating shopping features and search functions. Total downloads exceeded 7 million. Alexa's donations of crawl to the Internet Archive 8 Terabytes in size (about 6 million floppy disks.)
2001
In 2001, Alexa released Alexa Toolbar 6.0, incorporating a new sleeker design, and the Wayback button. Alexa's crawl donations to the Internet Archive surpassed the 100 terabyte mark. All pages were fully indexed and made available in the way which is now the largest database in the World. The Wayback Machine, built by Alexa Internet for the Internet Archive, was named the site of the year by Yahoo Internet Life magazine.
2002
In May of 2002 Alexa released Alexa Web Search and Alexa Toolbar version 6.5. By partnering with Google, Alexa has built a new kind of search engine, one that helps users find detailed information about sites on the Internet. Alexa's crawl donations to the Internet Archive have now surpassed the 200 terabyte mark.
2004
July 2004, the Alexa crawl increases in size to over 100 Terabytes covering 4.5 Billion pages.
In October of 2004 the Alexa Web Information Service beta was released on the Amazon.com Web Services platform. Now developers can build a whole new generation of useful tools based on Alexa's extensive information about the web. The services include URL Information, Browse Category, Web Search, Web Map and Crawl Meta Data.
2005
In November 2005 the Alexa Web Information Service version 1.0 was released on the Amazon.com Web Services platform.
In December 2005 the Alexa Web Search Platform was released in limited beta, allowing developers to have direct access to access to Alexa's infrastructure to create wholly new services based on Alexa vast repository of Web data.