Nielsen has decided to rank site popularity using “time on site” instead of “page views.” Evidently, this will improve accuracy.
My reaction? Whether “page view” or “time on site”, the traffic ranking metric makes little difference: the inaccuracy of nearly all internet traffic ranking systems is due to biased samples of web consumers. Because Nielsen takes some pains to create an unbiased sample of panelists, their ratings will be less deficient than other services. But make no mistake: their results will still be relatively inaccurate.
(And, for what it’s worth, “time on site” may be easy to game than page views. Carnac predicts we’ll see pop-under windows that stay open after a viewer has left a site! )
But forget about stealth pop-unders for now. Let’s assume browser designers figure out how to entirely prevent them. Why will Nielsen rankings be still be biased? How can we devise a good traffic ranking system? I’ll elaborate. (more…)