Amazon Closing Alexa Web Search

Amazon has been pretty busy this Thanksgiving break, not only are they dealing with the hoards of online shoppers they’re also quietly shutting down one of their web services… Alexa Web Search.

Alexa is already closed for new customers, and current users have until January 26, 2009 to some other service.

Alexa Web Search Closing

It should also be noted that the web search itself isn’t shutting down, only the API for programmers. There has been some confusion over this, as both services share the same name.

A post was made over at the Amazon Web Services Forum with the following message…

We are announcing the deprecation of the Alexa Web Search service as of November 26, 2008. After this date, the Alexa Web Search service will be closed to new subscriptions. The service will continue to be operational for 60 days until February 26, 2009.

Thank you, – The Alexa Web Services Team

Numerous developers have posted their frustrations, as this was a huge surprise to so many. Some have even said they fell they can no longer trust AWS in the future.

There are 3 Comments. Add Yours.

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Thomas Anderson
February 6, 2009 at 5:06 pm

For the folks who think this is a bad thing, consider for a moment where the Alexa results come from: Spyware.

Alexa is one of those companies that has used various techniques over the years to install their spyware program that monitors where you go and uploads the data back to the mothership. This is how they figure website popularity, even though most people now know that it only measures the popularity of websites visited by people who have spyware installed.

I, for one, am fine with this. Don’t reward a business model predicated on predatory practices against the perennial prey that their install base represent.

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funny monologues
May 21, 2009 at 11:00 am

I think this is a good move but they should have given more notice

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Emergency Medical Supplies
June 25, 2009 at 8:02 pm

no biggie- I don’t think anyone used this anyway