July 9th, 2007

Nielsen Replaces Page View Ranking With Time Spent, Swaps One Problematic Metric For Another

by Scott Karp

  •  Comments

Nielsen took a big step towards accelerating the death of the page view by announcing it would rank websites by time spend on the site instead. But time spent is an equally problematic metric that assumes that more is better, which isn’t the case with web applications designed for efficiency, like Google search.

Ranking top sites by total minutes instead of page views gives Time Warner Inc.’s AOL a boost, largely because time spent on its popular instant-messaging software now gets counted. AOL ranks first in the United States with 25 billion minutes based on May data, ahead of Yahoo’s 20 billion. By page views, AOL would have been sixth.

Google, meanwhile, drops to fifth in time spent, primarily because its search engine is focused on giving visitors quick answers and links for going elsewhere. By page views, Google ranks third.

The problem is that the web is not a monolithic medium. Reading a blog, using instant messaging, and using web search are utterly different — the idea that one metric can be used as a yardstick to compare them is absurd on the face of it.

The simplest common metric that would be meaningful is returning unique visitors, i.e. how many people use the site/service everyday, every week, etc.

Oh, but wait…you can’t measure unique visitors on the web, because people clear their cookies, use different computers, and do all sorts of things to defeat the technology.

Makes you wonder what the point of this obsession over metric is.

Oh, right, so that advertisers can figure out where to advertise and investors can figure out which sites to overpay for. Well, maybe we should look at the metric used by one of the most successful sites from both an advertising and investment perspective — what metric does Google use? Page views? No. Time spent? No. Unique visitors? No.

Oh, that’s right, those are OLD media metrics — proxies for things that matter, like actions. Google makes money by selling actions, i.e. clicks.

No wonder more than half of all online advertising revenue goes to Google.

Maybe it’s time we dropped the obsession with old media metrics and started thinking about Web native metrics.

Or we can just let Google run away with all the money.

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Topics: Google | New Media | Online Advertising

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  • Exactly how do they come by time spent, exactly?

    Just thinking about it.... I have something like 20 tabs open in Firefox right now, but I'm only looking at one. And I think I opened this one probably over an hour ago... just because it's been open an hour doesn't mean I've spent an hour looking at this page. (No offense - I mean I like this blog and all, but sheesh...)

    Anyway, I think you're absolutely right here. Why doesn't "user action" count for more? Once I'm done typing this comment I'm going to close this tab, as opposed to say clicking elsewhere on your site (again, no offense). But I'd think that kind of behavior is what advertisers would want to know about.
  • Just to correct: Nielsen didn't replace anything, they just add a new metrics. Nothing is perfect, time measure could balance pages views and visits but it gives a big extra bonus to all media and portals using applications (messengers, widgets etc...) which doesn't reflect exactly "exposition".

    For Eric : yes they will be able to define what tab is active (new tracking tool on the panelists PCs)

    But don't forget that to estimate the time spent you can only do it between 2 pages views. Too bad for Ajax pages ...
  • Hi.....while I agree with much of your article re complexity, I don't think the Google approach works for all forms of Ad media either.

    As Emmanuel points out, they are adding another dimension, not replacing volume measures per se.

    There is clearly a need to measure attention on a website, and as its hard there will is a need for a "good enough" proxy.

    Failure to provide this makes it darn hard to justify advertising on such sites, a fact which all the "Web 2.0" companies are no doubt very aware of.

    Is this it....probably not, but its a step forward, and this is an emerging area so "suck it and see" is as good an approach as any - and I don't see anyone proposing real alternatives.
  • Emmanuel/alan p,

    All of these metrics have value in some contexts -- the principal absurdity is trying to use ONE metric as a yard stick to compare all sites, as if this were still some mass media Nielsen TV ratings game. Each site has a unique value proposition to advertisers, often with entirely different measures. Really, this is just an effort to continue to be the "currency" for advertising, when the idea of a coin of the realm has been rendered meaningless.
  • When branding is the objective I think you have to look at multiple metrics and account for the difference in sites. Otherwise all kinds of absurdities pop, many of which have been pointed out here. Eric, the one about open Firefox tabs is bang on in my experience.
    When it comes to lead generation it is all about clicks and conversions. As Google has shown, lead generation is what people want. The really tricky part is how to add value beyond what Google offers. Cannot be on volume, they got that one nailed. So has to be on quality of lead and that means identifying the who with the click (which controlled mags can do) but then that will hit against the privacy backlash.
  • Rob
    RE: Paul Conley's comment: "The page view metric was replaced a long time ago by the cost-per-click metrics of Google."

    Huh? Nielsen is ranking online publishers and how they stack up others based on audience and retention of that audience, not click or user action performance. In-bound links to content from SERPs, blog rolls, RSS, internal site links, etc. continue to make online media properties powerful. Click-fraud continues to be an issue and should not be overlooked.

    Here's how I measure success. Revenue and Profit. Try it, it works.
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