Alexa.com Finally Embraces Mac Users
Written by madBADcat · June 18, 2008
Digitalapplejuice.com is primarily geared toward Mac users. We are a resource to other artists using a MAC; this is our intent and not a slight to PC users.
So it has been somewhat disheartening to know that our Alexa traffic rank has been fluctuating according to the number of PC users visiting our website. We know that the majority of our PC-using visitors read David Alison’s blog entries about switching from a PC to a Mac. We know this by looking at our AW Stats for our domain. We also know that we have a steady, though not huge, stream of loyal Mac-using readers who drop by to see what’s new.
Alexa.com, which is the internet equivalent of the Broadcast Nielsen Ratings (another flawed data gathering system), has been collecting data from users who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browser. Since the "toolbar" was only available to Windows IE users, extrapolating information about MAC users would seem to be an impossible task, don’t ya think?
Until VERY recently, these MAC users have been ignored by Alexa.com. Why? Because their data gathering methodology has been to just ignored the existence of the MAC.
Finally this month, Alexa has released a toolbar widget for Firefox on Mac. We can finally have our surfing habits counted. Get it today.
Get The Alexa Sparky 1.2.1 Here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5362
You may get the following error message when trying to install, "Not a valid install package -207". This is a known bug for Firefox (more info). Try installing again if this happens.
Alexa Sparky has been available as a Firefox plugin for a long time, at least a year. It’s not new.
Now, a Safari plugin would be new…
“MAC” is a cosmetic company or an indentity on a network port.
Apple, Inc. sells “Macs.”
It’s “Mac”!!! Not “MAC”!
Msharp- The funny thing is that I didn’t know Alexa existed until January of this year. When I realized that Alexa used a toolbar, I went looking for a MAC plugin many times and until recently, it was not offered. At least not on Alexa.com.
If it was offered prior to this last month, then I must be a complete idiot and halluciNAted the webpage on Alexa that told me that alexa didn’t offer a toolbar for MAC users.
Really I wouldn’t make this up. Could it be that I always went to Alexa.com on safari? I dunno. Maybe. Probably. Even so, you would think their “no we don’t support Safari” page would actually be a “we only support firefox for mac at this time ” page.
I don’t doubt that there has been a plugin since last year yet it seems that alexa.com has had no interest in making itsefl welcoming to mac users. Not surprising there is no safari plugin.
As for MAC vs mac- gee, sorry. My mistake. I’ll start taking my meds again.
Cheers.
madbadcat
i was just at firefox addons and its telling me the alexa sparky cannot be found…
LOL
Is mercury still retrograde?
see http://mimieux.com/alexa.jpg