Slashdot Mirror
Are Web Ratings Dangerous To Sites?
Freshly Exhumed writes "For website publishers, a poor web rating can be disastrous. Bad television ratings mean television shows get canceled, bad web ratings mean websites go out of business. For advertisers, accurate web ratings are critical to optimize spending. Inaccurate ratings data means advertisers will overspend on poorly performing sites or not advertise on smaller sites whose numbers are really much higher than reported. In the case of Canadian web site Digital Home, already hit with an advertising boycott by Bell Canada over the site's pro-consumer editorial content, the site's owner is now in danger of ending operations, apparently due to the inaccuracies of ComScore rankings. For example, Google Analytics reported Digital Home served up over 2.7 million page views in January to almost 250,000 unique visitors. A web buyer at one of Canada's largest advertising agencies confirmed that ComScore reported just 32,000 visitors. Added to this is ComScore's secretly-installed spyware troubles."
No sig for now.
I guess web ratings aren't so bad when all you need to do is bitch about it and then get free advertisement and additional page views by posting on Slashdot. After clicking on three Digital Home pages after following the links in the summary, I realized what a great tactic this really is.
For boosting site traffic than a good slashdotting ... assuming the server logs to substantiate it can be recovered after putting out the system fire.
is there anything else to this story?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
until you get Slashdotted...
That I read this on slashdot - a site who's alexa ratings have been skewed by an audiece who know the potency of the Alexa toolbar. (Look at the alexa graphs for one year ago and you'll see a massive jump in Slashdot, Digg and some other related sites)
Yes ratings can be hugely misleading, I remember hearing that Om Malik will walk out of any meeting where alexa stats are brought up by marketdroids.
Those numbers are probably accurate. The ComScore number reflects monthly US unique visitors. The Google Analytics number isn't uniques, just a summary of the daily visits. Check the "absolute unique visitors" section under Google Analytics and multiply by the % US traffic in the geo location section and you'll see that ComScore's numbers are usually pretty right on.
Of course, bad ratings are bad for sites and they should be -- if a site sucks and gets few visitors who are of the right demographic and right frame of mind for click-throughs, then its no surprise that advertisers would want to avoid them. The real issue is badly estimated ratings. If GoogScore claims a bazillion unique visitors when there really was a gajillion, then something is wrong.
The web advertising ecosystem needs metaraters -- services that determine the quality of ComScore, Google Analytics, et al.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It's rare that a business that delivers value to it's customer that exceeds the cost of running the business has money problems. Likely Digital Home mainly gets page views by people who are not likely to convert on seeing the ad (informed consumers tend to fall for the hype) and the same customers don't see the value in subscribing to such a service, or wish to donate.
How is a television show getting cancelled any different than going out of business anyways?
A Television show likely employs many more people who will get equally laid off when it is cancelled than Digital Home. How TV generally works is that a production company produces the show and then sells it. This is why you will see shows sometimes move between networks. To insulate the investors a company is usually formed on its own to produce the show. Once the show is cancelled and a new buyer cannot be found the business is generally ended.
If you can't find a market for your services I'd suggest producing a new service rather than whining about ratings systems. There is a lot of money out there, if there is real value certainly someone will buy it. (Whether via advertising or via subscription)
... die by the ComScore
Advertising isn't the only way, and ComScore isn't the only way to do advertising.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
http://roguelandowners.com/
Here's the original: http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/1799/1/ Basically, ExpressVu wanted to keep a lid on the fact that all the MPEG-2 receivers that are being sold today will soon be totally obsolete because they're transitioning to MPEG-4. What a bunch of slimebags.
Ironically, it was on Friday the 13th, too.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
How about the fact that Bell not only threatened Digital Home with pulling it's ads because of an article it didn't like, but then doing so? Is that not a bigger issue than how the site is ranked? Let's look at the facts for a sec:
1. Bell threatened to pull their ads because his article "was having a negative impact on dealer sales."
2. Digital Home presents that what they said is accurate and is confirmed by multiple sources. Not to mention that this info was public domain.
3. Bell yanks it's ads.
It sounds like Bell is ticked that people are going to wait a couple of months before they get a receiver for HDTV from them because they want the latest and greatest. You can't fault the consumer for that.
If this was happening to the New York Times, we'd be up in arms and this would be under "Your Rights Online" or "Censorship." But somehow this is a story about Comscore. I'm not saying that that aspect of the story doesn't have merit, but there's an equally important issue here that needs to be explored.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia's_Naughties t_Home_Videos qualifies as the lowest of the low.
For anyone that's counting that's ten days ago.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
So you're essentially suggesting a Digg-style, community-based system for rating these traffic rating services. It'll probably be just as shitty as Digg is. Digg already has some pretty serious problems with cliques that "attack" other users by burying their stories and comments. Add to that all those who digg posts in exchange for money. What's to stop these ratings sites from buying their way to a high ranking? Nothing, really.
Digg has been a complete failure. It's shown that community-based rating sites are far too easily abused.
Mr. Button had seen the article and demanded it be taken down from the site because it was having a negative impact on dealer sales. ...ExpressVu wanted to keep a lid on the fact that all the MPEG-2 receivers that are being sold today will soon be totally obsolete because they're transitioning to MPEG-4.
We want free to view content, but we don't want it to be a tool of the company that pays for it via advertising.
Sorry folks, that's never gonna happen.
We are all just people.
the purebred slashdotter can only have one outrage at a time, otherwise it will explode : )
any unsuccessful attempt to introduce a new outrage to a pre-existing one will result in your new outrage dying from lack of nutrition.
any successful attempt to introduce a new outrage to a pre-existing one will kill off the original.
this said.. it's in the best interest of outrage preservation that we keep them safe and separate, otherwise peta will douse you with red paint.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If web ratings go through, crappy sites might get the axe. That's a whole lot of MySpace pages the world can do without.
yep, ten days, definitely ten days...mm hmm..ten days... :)
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
If low web ratings cause sites to go out of business then what's the thinking behind the other front page story that has the EU moving to ban online hate speech? Won't a lack of advertisers cause hate-speech sites to go dark after a short time? There seems to be some sort of disconnect here.
Oh, wait... I get it. Website ratings are (a) overrated and (b) meaningless when you get right down to it. Only sites that are dedicated to the proposition of making a profit really care about such things as ratings and advertising revenue. Objectionable sites, like those that promote hate-speech, don't care what their ratings are. The tooth fairy must pay their expenses and keep them from going out of business. Of course, that applies also to non-hate sites. Sites that are run out of a love or passion for a specific topic of interest. Sites maintained by enthusiasts or hobbyists who aren't worried about making a profit.
When you come right down to it you could eliminate every site that carries advertising on the web and I wouldn't notice. And hate-speech sites aren't exactly in my bookmark list either. I think the web would be a better place without advertising of any kind. Hence, my complete lack of remorse for any site that closes down because their ad revenue isn't making the nut. Too bad. I will continue to block all ads that I can.
This is stupid. The web is the one advertising medium where the advertiser knows exactly how many times the ad has been viewed. Each ad is the subject of a separate HTTP request, and by keeping track of the count you know the precise number of downloads.
So why do you need to know the rating of the containing web page? That only tells you how often the page is viewed, and doesn't take into account freeloaders like me who use Adblock. Your own ad download statistics are a much better measure and the page ratings are irrelevant.
There was a station in Hawaii called "Radio Free Hawaii", they ran the music programming democraticly. There were ballot boxes placed in many businesses, colleges and other points of interest. Every week they tallied everyone's top 10 votes and did a top 36 countdown. Anything that consistantly got a few votes would get airplay on the "Dark Horse" show after recieving +10 votes. Anyway, just by sheer number of ballots they knew they were a rather popular station. Not to mention everyone talked about them, and thier outdoor festivals "The Big Mele" were huge. They never did subscribe to the rating company's informational services and somehow kept coming in dead last in ratings. So they never built up a big advertising base and eventually ran out of money.
Drive starred Nathan Fillion, who also starred in Serenity, which Fox also fucked in the ass and canned early. Methinks someone at Fox doesn't like Nathan Fillion at all.
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