This is ensuring that the URL you are getting the rank for is the one that alexa returns. See the comment above the xpath to see why that is important. There is also a failing test on travis that tests for the this behavior: https://travis-ci.org/blatyo/page_rankr/jobs/4237396

If you have a reason for removing this, could you please explain it to me?

Otherwise, can you change it back and also update alexa country to have it as well.

Thanks