Top Blog Site Calculation

If this is your first visit at iScatterlings, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is not in anyway my cup of tea as topics go but I think it’d be remiss of me to not quote from an article that Brady Forrest wrote here on 14 December in a post titled “AJAX Affects Page Views“. Please note that it is the follow up comments which I consider to be the most interesting piece about the article.

Brady follows up on a comScore Media Matrix report that has MySpace taking over top spot from Google. He says,”This is a great issue. How do you calculate the “top site” if the value of page views is constantly changing? By making their site more efficient Yahoo! has potentially hurt itself in the eyes of the sound bite, yet has increased user satisfaction - a better metric for them to care about in the long run. Instead of page views, Reel Pop is suggesting that we use “average time per user” on a site.”

Now that is all good and well for those who do not care a jot about ranking lists. I do, but only from the perspective of taking disagreeing and cynical pops at the lists and also at those who swear and live by them. And as always I have to yet again ask the big question - who makes up the rules and metrics by which rankings are governed? There is no conformity so how can Technorati’s engine (for instance) be the one to go by? Or any other for that matter? They all have different rules.

Anyway, the best bit about Brady’s post is the follow up comments. Here aresome crackers:

I thought we were beyond page views 5 years ago.

Posted by: anon at December 14, 2006 12:13 PM

And better still….

I wonder if comScore can even tell the difference between a pageview and an ajax request? Does anyone know? If it can’t, then moving over to ajax would not necessary hurt Yahoo’s page views according to comScore.

Posted by: Kris at December 14, 2006 05:35 PM

and then finally something I relate to……

I’ve always believed is not how many people you get to see your page, but how many of them return for seconds… and thirds… But that metric is even harder considering internet cafes, wifi, and privacy issues…

Posted by: JustAThought at December 15, 2006 05:33 AM

So there you are. I hope you learnt something from this. I did. And I think you know which orifice I think ranking lists can be shoved up!