comScore metrics re-jigged to acknowledge AJAX

Web stats auditor comScore has introduced a new 'visits' metric to augment its 'page views' tracking after conceding its previous system unfairly represented Yahoo!

Yahoo! protested in December after comScore data placed it behind MySpace for pages viewed. Yahoo!'s increasing use of AJAX means users create fewer page views because tasks can be completed without reloading pages.

Yahoo!'s Peter Daboll wrote last week at the Yodel Anecdotal blog:

"Sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s an important evolution of their existing “frequency” measurement, which only captures the average number of days people visit a site per month."

Now charts released by comScore last night using the new measurements place Yahoo! top of the tree, ahead of MySpace and Google.

Jack Flanagan, comScore's Media Metrix executive vice president, said:

"As technologies like AJAX change the Internet landscape, certain measures of engagement, such as page views, are diminishing in significance for many web properties.

"The introduction of these new metrics based on 'visits' provides an alternative for measuring user engagement that tells us how frequently visitors are actually returning to the site to view more content."

See also our related blog post about the 'death of the page impression'.

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