Headlines about the massive layoffs in Amazon’s Alexa division and chatter that the Alexa group is hemorrhaging cash. In another development from earlier 2022, Amazon shutter Alexa.com, with Amazon saying prior to the shutdown that it was a “difficult” decision.
What does that mean for Alexa?
Well, no matter the financial tribulations that Alexa appears to be facing, the truth is that Alexa.com the website had nothing to do with Alexa the voice assistant.
Back in 1996, just a few years after the birth of the World Wide Web, Alexa Internet was a service that track and compare the traffic of websites, gathering browsing data from the Alexa Toolbar (subsequently replace by browser extensions) as well as sites that had install the Alexa script on their pages.
Amazon snap up Alexa Internet and the Alexa.com domain back in 1999, a full 15 years before Alexa the voice assistant made her first appearance.
A site’s Alexa traffic ranking was a big deal.
Not only could website owners stack their properties up against competitors, they could also raise their advertising rates if their rankings were high enough.
The Alexa Toolbar was also a popular helper app for browsers that, among many other tools, include a then-novel popup blocker.
But Alexa Internet eventually found itself in an increasingly competitive field.
While there were once plenty of loyal Alexa.com users around, Amazon clearly felt that the cost of keeping the site operational was no longer worth the expense.
Amazon announce its intention to close down Alexa.com in December 2021, and the service finally went dark on 1st May, 2022.
Amazon owns both Alexa the Internet site and, you know, Alexa, but the two entities are otherwise unrelated, and Amazon’s decision to shut down Alexa.com had nothing to do with Alexa’s current predicament.
If you do want to visit Alexa digital assistant on the web, you can still go to alexa.amazon.com.
On this webpage, you can perform many of the Alexa-related functions that appear on the Alexa app, including adjusting Alexa preferences, setting alarms and reminders, managing skills and connect smart home devices, and many more.
