Alexa

I’m not particularly aggressive about promoting Locus Online or obsessive about its usage statistics (since unlike Locus Magazine, Locus Online is remotely far from supporting anyone, however modestly), so when a couple days ago I stumbled upon a web search and ranking utility called Alexa, I had the suspicion that I’d belatedly discovered something that most netizens are already aware of. After all, there was Alexa already built into my IE toolbar (under Tools/Show Related Links). I just hadn’t clicked it before.

Doing so, I found that it shows the traffic rank of whatever site currently in the browser. So of course.. well, here’s a ranking of sites I frequently visit, or was curious about, without further comment. The only caveat is that Alexa ranks by domain name, not specific URL, so I can’t discover, for example, what the rank of Bruce Sterling’s blog is by itself (it’s part of wired.com), nor can I parse Locus Online from the Locus Index to SF or the Index to SF Awards.