Comments on: Page views or time spent – hey Nielsen, both are worthless

By: Curtiss Grymala

Curtiss Grymala — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Analytics such as pageviews, time spent on site, hits, etc. are only useful if you know what your goals are. Other analytics, such as screen resolutions, browser versions, etc. can be so much more helpful than the aforementioned items.

Truly, though, if you are not a for-profit Web site, the only way to really measure your effectiveness is to perform audits and focus groups. Knowing that 40,000 people visited my Web site doesn’t tell me whether the site is effective. It just tells me that my advertising directing them to the Web site was effective.

The new way to truly and effectively measure your Web site’s effectiveness is through mouse/eye movement studies.

I saw a study explaining the effectiveness of white space and short, meaningful content a few months ago. The study took a menu and made it into a Web page. They then made two versions; one with long, flowing text describing in great detail all of the menu items. The other had short, condensed text and a few extra pictures. Users spent something like 50-75% more time on the first, but came away with something like 40-50% more information from the second.

That throws the whole “time spent” theory right out the window.

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ben you make some good points about advertiser value. I don't think that your note about flash/ajax is 100% valid though as sites with higher usability will suffer. Why not just stick in another function to keep the user wandering around another 20 seconds? etc.

I sure hope we get to something better soon.

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

love that comment matt!

By: SEO Mash

SEO Mash — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

When it comes down to it all anyone really cares about is PPUPM, a new term just coined on the fly, Profit Per User Per Month. Who cares about how “sticky” a site is or how many page views it gets? Why beat around the bush with a bunch of meaningless statistics – we all know the bottom line is making money. :)

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think time spent is only valid for timing certain sites. social sites like facebook would be ideal canidates for this sort of stat.

I think a better measurement would be target audenice served right content (not sure how you’d measure it though).

By: Ben Elowitz

Ben Elowitz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

For the advertisers who use Nielsen’s service, what would be really valuable to know is ‘if I advertise here, who am I reaching, and how effectively am I reaching them?’ Let’s face it, all these HTTP, connection, and server metrics are just proxies for the real questions of advertiser value. So, barring eye-tracking systems and other invasive technologies, we have to make the best of the data we can gather.

I don’t think pageviews, visit length, or any other one metric is a perfect stand-in for advertiser value. Visit length does solve one problem (how to account for ajax/flash sites), at least, so in that sense I think it’s a step forward until we find something better.

By: Matt J Harwood

Matt J Harwood — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I agree in every respect, that current metrics are pretty much worthless. But, am I a hypocrite for constantly checking my stats? :)

Fantastic post!

By: lucia

lucia — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I just closed a bunch of tabs only to discover this one has been open at least half an hour. Most likely longer because I went to the kitchen to prepare some chicken.

All six of those sites must be golden!