Editing Alexa Internet (section)

=== 1996–1999 ===
Alexa Internet was founded in April 1996 by [[Brewster Kahle]] and [[Bruce Gilliat]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1998/98-167.html|title=ALEXA Internet Donates Archive of the World Wide Web To Library of Congress|date=October 13, 1998|publisher=Alexa press release|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091013152257/http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1998/98-167.html|archive-date=October 13, 2009|url-status=dead|access-date=October 9, 2009}}</ref> The company's name was chosen in homage to the [[Library of Alexandria]] in [[Ptolemaic dynasty|Ptolemaic Egypt]], drawing a parallel between the largest repository of knowledge in the ancient world and the potential of the [[Internet]] to become a similar store of knowledge.<ref name="gift2">{{cite web|url=http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=17893|title=A "Gift of the Web" for the Library of Congress from Alexa Internet|date=October 19, 1998|access-date=June 27, 2017|archive-date=October 6, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006151308/http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=17893|url-status=live}}</ref> Alexa initially offered a toolbar that gave Internet users suggestions on where to go next based on the traffic patterns of its user community. The company also offered context for each site visited: to whom it was registered, how many pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how frequently it was updated.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tbtf.com/archive/1997-07-28.html|title=Alexa Internet opens the doors|author=Keith Dawson|date=July 28, 1997|access-date=October 9, 2009|archive-date=April 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130420230919/http://tbtf.com/archive/1997-07-28.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Alexa's operations grew to include the archiving of web pages as they are [[Web crawler|"crawled"]] and examined by an automated computer program (nicknamed a "bot" or "web crawler").<ref>{{Citation |last=Internet Archive |title=The Wayback Machine's First Crawl 1996 |date=2021-08-06 |url=http://archive.org/details/wayback-machine-1996 |access-date=2023-04-18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Bryant |first=Michael |date=2021-04-22 |title=What is the Wayback Machine and Why is it Useful? |url=https://www.groovypost.com/explaier/what-is-the-wayback-machine-and-why-is-it-useful/ |access-date=2023-04-18 |website=groovyPost |language=en-US}}</ref> This database served as the basis for the creation of the [[Internet Archive]], accessible through the [[Wayback Machine]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/about/faqs.php|title=Internet Archive FAQs|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091021003552/https://archive.org/about/faqs.php|archive-date=October 21, 2009|url-status=live|access-date=October 9, 2009}}</ref> In 1998, the company donated a copy of the archive, two [[terabyte]]s in size, to the [[Library of Congress]].<ref name="gift2" /> Alexa continued to supply the [[Internet Archive]] with web crawls. In 1999, as the company moved away from its original vision of providing an "intelligent" [[search engine]], Alexa was acquired by Amazon.com for approximately US$250 million in Amazon [[Share capital|stock]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/05/24/newscolumn4.html|title=E-commerce loves Street: Critical Path plans encore|author=Adam Feuerstein|date=May 21, 1999|work=[[San Francisco Business Times]]|access-date=November 5, 2013|archive-date=June 30, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630074336/http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/05/24/newscolumn4.html|url-status=live}}</ref>