Will Online Traffic Scandal Make Newspaper Circulation Scandal Look Like Child's Play?
from the math-is-hard dept
Two years ago, the corporate scandal of the summer was all of the big newspapers who were caught lying about their subscriber numbers to advertisers, and it got them in all sorts of hot water. The numbers of "ghost subscribers" tended to be in the tens of thousands of subscribers -- representing a few percent of actual subscribers. What's amazing, as so much advertising moves online, however, is that there's been almost no skepticism over whether or not something similar is happening online. In the last few months, we've seen a number of sites claiming traffic numbers that are unlikely to be realistic, but which the press is often passing on as if they were fact. A few reporters have picked up on this, and now the NY Times is pointing out that Forbes.com appears to have been pumping up its traffic numbers to help its standing with advertisers (and to help it secure venture capital investment) -- perhaps by millions of visitors. The numbers are a lot bigger than the newspaper circulation scandal from a few years ago, and it seems like only a matter of time until the same questions are raised online. The various newspapers involved in the ghost subscriber scandals a few years ago got punished and had to pay up -- but will web publications face the same punishment as well? Part of the problem is a lack of agreement about how to count online visitors -- and stats packages that return wildly different numbers. A second issue is that many ad deals are based on specific impressions, so it doesn't matter how much overall traffic a site is getting as long as the specific impressions are accurate (though, as in the Forbes.com case, the company clearly was using its traffic numbers to get advertisers in the door by claiming they had the largest audience). However, with the recent rise in ad or sponsorship deals based on time (such as "be our sponsor for a month"), it could raise some problems. With all the fuss about how online media is back thanks to advertising, it's worth remembering that the ad market is cyclical, and a big scandal over highly inflated traffic numbers could torpedo the ad sales of some sites pretty quickly.
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Follow the money
File this under I for inevitable.
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my solution
They can log in and see what kind of visitors we get themselves, see real traffic treds, etc.. and decide if the site is good for them.
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Surprise
Think of it this way -- Nielsen measures national TV ratings with a 9000 household sample. Does anybody in the media world really think this is a good sample size for 112 million households???
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Re: Surprise
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Re: Surprise
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the problem is...
if the site statistics and the rate plans were handled by people with a history of honesty, there probably wouldn't be so many scandals.
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Who Cares?
Advertisers are the biggest fricken liars on the face of the earth!
Nobody likes their own medicine...goes down real bitter!
Talk about exagerated statements...is drinking Miller light really going to get me all those hot girls?!?!?!?!
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Amen
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Doesn't really matter
Online advertising, by its very nature, IS 100% trackable.
With an online ad I can track where you came from, and whether or not you purchased.
If enough purchases come from an ad on a site--I am advertising on that site, I could care less what numbers you have--or claim to have.
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People who think that measuring 10% of the population will get you a better answer than 1% of the population are dreaming, firstly it costs more to collate that data, secondly it doesn't give you any MORE information than you had at 1% (provided that 1% was say 100 or more people), just perhaps a greater degree of confidence.
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comScore/Nielson/MediaMetrix/HitWise/Alexa are bog
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Stats
The ratios arent as important as selecting a random set reflective of what is being measured.
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allowing a third party to measure the number of
visitors. the tag code could only vistit the 3rd part site say 1 on 100 visits - but you can still get a approx measure of the millions of hits claimed.
the prospective - add buyer then can hire a company
to hit the site a certain numner of times and look for the
addrsses in the 3rd party log. - the ratios of the
expect hits can be checked.
It is hard to cheat it you use the right stats.
or they can place a tag on of a subpage to
set a prospective ad cliet see the traffiic.
This is like sitting ina store and counting the customers.
- if the count is badly off then one will know -
I do'n't mean that few % due to a 'bad' day.
i.e. if you calin 400 customers/ hour
ans you sit ans see onlt only 100 in one hour
one may want to know why the observer number are so far off.
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