'Net Features : alexa

Battle for SSL Dominance Heats Up

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:35:00 GMT

The December 2010 Alexa-Netcraft SSL Index was released recently and it seems the battle for dominance in the SSL (secure socket layers) market is heating up and getting pretty nasty.

According to the report (compiled monthly by CatapultWorks) which provides an indication of SSL certification usage across the most trafficked websites by cross-referencing the Netcraft SSL Survey with the Alexa Top Sites list), GeoTrust maintained its leadership position and trumped low-cost competitors such as Go Daddy for the seventh straight month, securing 35,540 unique domains among the Internet's 1 million most visited websites. Go Daddy registered 27,578 unique domains for the same period.

"GeoTrust is consistently leading the low-cost, high-volume segment of the SSL market over competitors such as Go Daddy," said Jeff Barto, senior product marketing manager for GeoTrust. "We expect to continue our lead into 2011 on the strength of our global service reach, convenience, attractive prices and product reputation."

GeoTrust is not pulling any punches with Go Daddy either – calling out Go Daddy customers interested in switching from “the third place provider to market leading GeoTrust® SSL” with a rather nasty “Who’s Your Daddy Now” campaign.

Improvements to the Alexa Ranking System

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:32:00 GMT

Web information company Alexa, an Amazon company, announced that a new ranking system is available. Alexa has ranked websites since 1998 and that time has managed to endear itself to millions of website owners and operators and simultaneously raise the ire of the same number. Rankings were based on analysis of Internet usage by people using the Alexa toolbar which any savvy online marketer can tell you, could easily be manipulated in the past. Today, website owners are seeing their rankings shift and the fun will continue for the next couple weeks. While the announcement was pretty vague on what has actually changed might again make Alexa a competitor in the face of competition from solutions like Compete.com, Quantcast.com and other Web ranking services.

An improved methodology will normalize traffic from a global panel and provide more accurate rankings for all countries, and while not dumping the toolbar data outright, Alexa rankings will now be based on more sources of data to give better indication of website popularity. Pretty big news in the website ranking business.

Does this system-wide improvement make Alexa a more viable solution?
Login or register now and share your comment!

alexa rankings website rankings quantcast compete web rankings