Alexa's New Related Links

I'm very excited to tell you about Alexa's new and improved Related Links. For the last few months we have been toiling away developing devious new algorithms to tease better related links out of our Web crawl. While I can't divulge the secret sauce, I can say that the work paid off in a big way.

If you have an Alexa Toolbar or Sparky (everybody does, right?) then you can really enjoy the full benefit of the related links and start to discover more content on the web that you may find interesting. Just go to your favorite site, look at your toolbar, and see what's related; click it, and go.

If you use Alexa for more serious pursuits, such as identifying competition or planning a marketing campaign, you will find that the related links are much more on target than before. To see the related links you should either install an Alexa Toolbar, or you can go to an Alexa detail page for any site and click "Related Links".

[The above was written by Geoff Mack. Below is an addendum by Kelly Dragoo.]

Sometimes, there's just as much fun happening just a click away of which you're not even aware. I'm a big fan, for example, of lolcats. Especially since I got a puppy of my own, I take immense pleasure in photos of pets with funny, misspelled text. Imagine my joy, upon testing the new Related Links for ICanHasCheezburger, at discovering I Has a Hot Dog! Thank you, Related Links!

I also love catty commentary on celebrities and pop culture. I've been a long-time fan of The Fug Girls, but their Related Links have given me a new obsession: The Superficial. (I'll bet my boss, Geoff who wrote the above, is thrilled that our new, improved Related Links have given me more ways to goof off at my desk!)

Of course, not all of life is funny photos of pets. With the coming U.S. presidential election in November, I have been following a lot of political and news sites, trying to separate the spin from the facts. I have made frequent use of FactCheck, a non-partisan resource for distilling politics to something closer to reality than campaign promises. However, since last time I found it helpful, I had completely forgotten about OpenSecrets.org; this likewise nonpartisan site is immensely helpful when it comes to following the money that influences policy and elections, and I was reminded of it in FactCheck's Related Links. But I didn't even know about another Related Link Electoral-vote.com. This website predicts electoral votes for each state based on polling data. They even have a page comparing this day in 2008 to the same day in 2004--the possibilities for nail-biting are endless!

So whether you use them for work or for play, give the new Related Links a whirl and let us know what you think.
Kelly Dragoo