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Trying To Measure The Web
By Pat McCarthy
Expert Author
Article Date: 2007-08-16
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I like what Quantcast is doing in trying to measure the web.
Everyone complains about the inaccuracies of Alexa and other similar ranking tools, and they have good reason to complain.
The reason I like Quantcast is because they actually give publishers code to put on their site so you can actually send them real traffic data in which to rank your site accordingly and report interesting demographics and other information. As a publisher not only will you be ranked more accurately, but you can use the information to help pitch your site to advertisers.
Unfortunately the downfall of their system so far is that it requires publishers to actually take that action to install the code, and I think it's always going to be an uphill battle to get enough of the web to do that to make their ranking system as accurate as it could be.
Either way, they've announced today that they've added the ability to add their code to Flash videos and widgets so that data is added to the mix as well. Instead of summarizing it all in my own words, here's the highlights from their press release:
- Tabbed Quantified Publisher Profiles: Quantcast profiles will always feature the popular summary view for each online property. But now they include an enhanced traffic tab that provides greater depth and insight on key audience reach, engagement and frequency metrics.
Key metrics, including unique visitors, visits and page-views, are presented in dynamic daily, seven-day and trailing 30-day charts. In addition, a traffic summary automatically calculates your average visits per unique visitor and page views per visit. Coming soon, this tab will include time-on-site metrics.
- The Quantified Publisher Network View: This new interface - presently in beta - enables you to track your portfolio of properties (websites, videos, widgets, etc.) in a single dashboard. It also gives you one-click access and a single point of control for the Quantcast profiles on all of your sites and services.
The Quantcast Network View features the new traffic tab with the same easy-to-use dynamic charts to provide a rich overview of network metrics. Unique visitors ("uniques") are reported as unduplicated network reach, and the other network metrics are shown in the aggregate. It's created when you quantify a second site or add a media element. As always, you can adjust your settings to control which elements the world can view.
- Secure Quantcast Measurement Tags: Paired with conventional Quantcast measurement tags for content pages, new secure Quantcast tags enable you to measure traffic to your transactional ‘https' pages with no interruption to check-out, and no affect on the shopping experience.
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About the Author:
Pat is the Director of Business Development at Right Media, the business unit owner for RMX Direct, and the author of the Conversion Rater blog.
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