(Mis)Tracking Web Traffic
PreacherTom writes "Online advertising is considered by many to be the most dependably trackable ad medium of all time, with revenues expected to grow to $16 billion in this year alone. However, companies are finding that competing methods of measuring web traffic are giving contradictory results. Since advertising revenues are based directly on the traffic developed, this news could mean serious trouble. For example, valuations for startups such as Facebook and YouTube appear to be doubling every few months, but those numbers are based on traffic figures that could be misleading."
..and this wasn't patently obvious from the 1st day they started using banners back in the mid 90s? If they're just figuring this now, then marketers really are fools.
As Benjamin Disraeli (or Mark Twain, or was it Lord Courtney? who knows...) might have said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and web analytics."