Is The ‘Page View’ Metric Dying?
I have seen a few posts on other blogs and articles on some tech sites recently that are discussing the relevancy of the Page View metric.
From day one of my involvement in online publishing and business I have measured the ‘size’ of websites (ie, the magnitude of their traffic levels) using, primarily, 2 things and 2 things only:
- Unique visitors (UVs) and
- Page Views (PVs)
Of course, these 2numbers only give you a ‘quick and dirty‘ summary of the size of a website.
Many more Web Analytics variables should be used to properly evaluate a website’s traffic, but for the evalutation of a site for advertising media placement, UVs and PVs have been all that is required.
Until now that is. Now, it is a little more complicated.
How does a website that uses Ajax heavily to load and alter content display be evaluated properly by media buyers to buy media position? Websites are going to have to be able to reload ads, and use advertising that interacts with visitors in a more engaging way as websites continue to embrace web 2.0. Web Analytics and Ad Servers (like Doubleclick) will need to stay ahead of the game in providing appopriate tagging and measurement services for new content delivery and advertising services.
Media buyers using reports like Netratings SiteCensus still only rank sites by Visitors and Page Views.
Metrics such as:
- Temporal media metrics (length of viewing, interaction etc)
- Average session times
- Visitor Loyalty
- Pages per Visitor
- Interaction with page components and technology (widgets, RSS)
- RSS Content and Ad delivery
are going to become far more important as user generated content grows (think web 2.0, but don’t ask me to define it) and as websites use more Ajax and inline technology to display content and interact with users.
Online Analytics companies like Nielsen//Netratings are making a little headway (Netratings now offer a video product, but it is still only a basic metric).
Website interactivity and technologies like Ajax will certainly change the way users interact with content. I think this will be great for usability, when done correctly. But it might muddy the waters when trying to work out how valuable websites are for advertising.
