Alexa is not a search engine, but rather a web service which complements web browsers by offering a list of related links. Indexing your website with Alexa is an important add-on for users who are surfing websites which are related to yours, including potential competitors. In addition, Alexa is integrated in all 4.x Netscape browsers (try it out by clicking the What's Related button adjacent to the URL bar) and is gaining popularity in Internet Explorer browsers.
Alexa ranks its related links based on popularity, so if your website is popular (many people link to your site) or if your listed in a major web directory, chances are, your site will be queued for indexing shortly. As of May, 1999 Alexa has over 13 terabytes of data from the web.
Alexa archives all text on your webpage and weighs priority on text and descriptions from the top of your webpage(s).
Spidering
Alexa will spider or follow all links it finds on your website and index them into their database. You can control the degree of spidering through a standardized robots governing file or META tags.
Submission Time
Not all websites are accepted into Alexa's database, but those that are accepted are typically added in under a month.
