Nielsen NetRatings

Posted by Peter Brady on Fri 20th July 2007 at 06:00 AM, Filed in Key Articles

In light of moves towards Ajax and streaming, Nielsen//NetRatings have conceded that their rating service is to lose page view metrics rankings for a move towards total number of minutes spent on site.

I have to admit a little bafflement at this move. Of course there are plenty of other important metrics to monitor, but why not just maintain them all instead of dropping one in favour of another?

I’m convinced advertisers would like to see a variety of data when making their inventory decisions - that includes dwell time, uniques, page views, RSS subs etc.

Nielsen say:

“Based on everything that’s going on with the influx of Ajax and streaming, we feel total minutes is the best gauge for site traffic,” said Scott Ross, director of product marketing at Nielsen. “We’re changing our stance on how the data should be” used.

As mentioned over on Blogspotting all this confusion is likely to benefit those who sell ads based on clicks although Google is obviously retaining an interest in metrics based inventory with it’s purchase of banner advertiser DoubleClick.

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