So a tipster sent this new site to us, 1337orNot.com.

And it seems ridiculously goofy.

That's why it caught our eye.

In the geekiest and most honest and most tried and true tradition on the internet, our peers decide whats cool and whats not with a simple vote.

1337orNot.com will tell you if you're well...1337 or Not.

By uploading your own photo you are clearly Not.

But if you have to get up on there, just make it not so obvious, kthxbai?

HotOrNot.com blew up with this format, but for obvious OTHER reasons. Does 1337orNot.com have a shot? Well, you decide and let us know.

Upload your 1337est (is that even a word? ah it's the interwebs, nevermind) friends' photos and let people vote. Maybe you'll pop up there as well.

1337 us know (get it?) how you rank.

thanks Bobby!

Web site ranking service Alexa has long been one of the most used, and one of the least trusted ways to figure out how popular a web site is. That's because it's difficult to determine a site's actual traffic without access to the owner's private data. But Alexa's reliance on a small army of users who installed a browser toolbar had an obvious tendency to skew the results toward tech-heavy web sites.

Now Alexa is using data from "multiple sources" and not just the toolbar to create more accurate rankings. The company isn't really saying what those sources are, but many web sites will see an adjustment in their Alexa traffic reports. Alexa also isn't admitting that its rankings were incorrect before, just that they were "different."

You'll also notice that you can only get graphs for the last 9 months of traffic. Alexa is recalculating older data and will add multi-year graphs soon.

[via TechCrunch]

There must be something in the water over at Mountain View, because it seems that a day doesn't pass without at least a few significant Google updates. Today we've got enhanced emoticons in Gmail chat, support for group chats, and the company's also experimenting with the idea of letting users vote on search results.

The first update is pretty self explanatory. Pretty much every instant messaging application on the face of the earth (including Google Talk) has support for funny looking emoticons, so it was only a matter of time before you saw them start to pop up in email-based chat clients. If you've grown fond of Google's little rotating :-), fear not. It's still there as the default smiley.

You can also now initiate group chats with multiple Gmail or GTalk users by clicking the "options" button and entering a list of people you want to invite.

Google is also testing a new way to refine search results, by asking users to get involved in the ranking process. The project is part of Google Experimental, which means that you'll need to sign up for participation. Once you're signed up, you'll notice two little icons next to search results. Click the up arrow to indicate that you like the result, or the X button to bury it. Right now, the results will only be stored in your own settings, so you can consider this a step towards personalized search. But if this catches on, the Google of the future could use a combination of computers and real live people to determine the most accurate search results.

[via Googlified]

About Inc, the lonely search engine company that tends to be forgotten about, is targeting health searchers with its recent purchase of the health care ratings site, UCompareHealthCare.com.

The site specializes in rating and providing information on doctors, nursing homes, hospitals, and specialty centers so that people can make more informed decisions on their healthcare.

With this purchase, About.com and the About Health team will see the addition of approximately five million additional monthly uniques.

Currently Google, Yahoo and MSN Live already provide specialty searches and results for Health related topics, and have for some time now.

[via PaidContent]