Alexa: Malaysiakini.com tops The Star Online

Malaysia - Subscription-based Malaysiakini.com is a more popular online news destination than The Star Online according to Alexa.com. The site was ranked the 15th top website in the country while The Star's online portal placed 16th.

"Even though it is a subscription-based website, it is interesting to see Malaysiakini.com compete well with free websites," Premesh Chandran, CEO, Malaysiakini.com, said.

The Star Online declined to comment on Alexa's latest findings, which also put Yahoo in first place above Google.com.my. Friendster was listed as the third most popular site in Malaysia while Facebook was only ranked as 8th most popular.

Alexa.com says its traffic rankings are based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach).

However, controversy over how much Alexa's user base represents typical internet behavior has been well documented over the years.