as ranked by

Question

Could somebody please tell me why it says 'as ranked by'? Why would you put 'as'?

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies incur.

Thank you in advance

Doctor D · Accepted Answer

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies incur.

The sentence is awkwardly worded, yes. They could have said "according to their gross revenue..." instead of "as ranked by." But "as ranked by" indicates the category used in establishing the ranking of the corporations. And using this form of "rank" ("as ranked by") refers us back to the original idea of the corporations being ranked.
If they had said "that ranks the top 500...corporations by their gross revenue," that would have been correct and more concise, but perhaps confusing because of the long separation between the two parts of the phrase "ranked by."

Doctor D · Answer

Sorry.  The closing words should be "ranks by."

as ranked by

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