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ComScore study highlights need for metrix shake-up
A new report indicates that the way internet audiences are measured should be shaken up.
A study by online measurement firm comScore found that cookies are regularly being deleted by a portion of US home PC users, and may not be as reliable for tracking audiences as many believe.
Cookies are small text files that are inserted by web servers on to users' computers. They can be used to track user information.
However, some users regularly clear them from the computers, meaning that the servers replace them with new cookies and produce distorted figures.
"It is clear that a certain segment of internet users clears its cookies very frequently," said comScore's president, Dr Magid Abraham.
"These 'serial resetters' have the potential to wildly inflate a site's internal unique visitor tally, because just one set of 'eyeballs' at the site may be counted as 10 or more unique visitors over the course of a month."
The internet is becoming increasingly important for marketers who spend more and more money on online advertisers. It is therefore important that they gain accurate information about how effectively their products are being advertised.
As pointed out by the BBC, links are a crucial way to rate a website's importance.
"Essentially, the web is a collection of pages, all linking to each other," the broadcaster notes. "One of the most important factors in deciding how relevant particular sites are is to count how many other sites link to it."
To maximise your own website, link building is highly effective.
Online Advertising news posted on 18 April 2007
