Ajax web analytics: “Simulation” metrics from Nielsen//NetRatings
A news snippet in the Australian Financial Review today suggests that web analytics and ranking company Nielsen//NetRatings is adapting to changes in web technologies, as promised in Nielsen//NetRatings response to the US Internet Advertising Bureau’s call for better web metrics.
At issue is the need for advertisers and digital media planners to have reliable data for comparing the audiences and usage of different websites offering advertising inventory.
The introduction of technologies such as RSS, whose page views are missed and not counted by many metrics systems, and Ajax which reduces the need for page reloading as users interact with a website, has made it harder to get reliable and comparable metrics.
MyHome is an Australian property advertising site which uses Ajax and is owned by Publishing & Broadcasting Limited and Microsoft. Apparently Nielsen/NetRatings is recommending that Ajax site owners implement tagging code which simulates the reloading of Ajax pages.
Today’s Australian Financial Review quotes a Nielsen executive (Elvira Lodewick) as saying: “MyHome has recently decided to change the way it implements the Nielsen//NetRatings tagging code, enabling a more accurate count of page impressions through the simulation of reloading of Ajax pages. … The implementation changes are currently being made by MyHome, with assistance from the [Nielsen] team.”
I’m really not sure if this use of “simulation” helps - or just makes it even harder to be confident that the metrics we look at are reliable!