Last night Alexa announced that they are opening up their entire database, including server services to developers in exchange for consumption fees. This means there is finally a database API that developers can tie into for commercial purposes with the fees clearly outlined. One of the things that appeals to me, which I’m sure other developers are already thinking about, is the possibility of being able to carve out your own specialized databases out of Alexa’s 5 billion documents.

They are only taking a limited number of developers during their beta test, so might want to hurry up and get over here and sign up: websearch.alexa.com

The documentation says they have some higher level example scripts, but no idea if that includes PHP examples or not. The central API is written in C.

I signed up last night and am waiting for an account rep to contact me, hopefully today. I will be writing more about this system after I learn more about what’s behind the curtain.