Comments on: Nielsen online readership numbers: take with a grain of salt http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/05/29/nielsen-online-readership-numbers-take-with-a-grain-of-salt/ now with extra source Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:50:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: mike smith http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/05/29/nielsen-online-readership-numbers-take-with-a-grain-of-salt/#comment-18256 mike smith Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000 #comment-18256 "The company uses a “patented methodology” to capture online usage, and naturally enough they are not going to release the details." - But if it's patented, they *have* released the details. Could be this.<br /><br />http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week16/OG/html/1329-3/US07360251-20080415.html<br /> “The company uses a “patented methodology” to capture online usage, and naturally enough they are not going to release the details.” - But if it’s patented, they *have* released the details. Could be this.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week16/OG/html/1329-3/US07360251-20080415.html

]]> By: Megan Clarken http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/05/29/nielsen-online-readership-numbers-take-with-a-grain-of-salt/#comment-18257 Megan Clarken Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000 #comment-18257 As a leader in online measurement in Australia, Nielsen Online regularly provides website audience numbers to its news publisher clients to assist them in assessing their online performance.<br /><br />In the past, the figure which was most commonly used to measure website audiences was monthly unique browsers. Nielsen Online is committed to continuously reviewing and improving its services and, in line with this commitment, the monthly unique browser metric was superseded twelve months ago by a new metric which Nielsen Online has identified, through extensive research, as being the most reliable and accurate metric available on the market: average daily unique browsers. While monthly unique browser numbers are helpful for providing an historical trend or comparison with ad server results, the data is largely subjected to the effects of cookie generation, whereas average daily unique browser numbers see minimal effect from single users generating multiple cookies. For this reason, Nielsen Online is phasing out the monthly unique browser metric and actively discouraging its clients from using this data, instead relying on the more accurate average daily unique browser metric.<br /><br />Nielsen Online reports the following year-on-year growth for the top Australian news sites based on average daily unique browsers:<br /><br />National Nine News - 4%<br />The Age - 17%<br />Sydney Morning Herald - 18%<br />The Australian - 23%<br />Herald Sun - 62%<br />news.com.au - 33%<br />Daily Telegraph - 102%<br />Courier Mail - 89%<br /> As a leader in online measurement in Australia, Nielsen Online regularly provides website audience numbers to its news publisher clients to assist them in assessing their online performance.

In the past, the figure which was most commonly used to measure website audiences was monthly unique browsers. Nielsen Online is committed to continuously reviewing and improving its services and, in line with this commitment, the monthly unique browser metric was superseded twelve months ago by a new metric which Nielsen Online has identified, through extensive research, as being the most reliable and accurate metric available on the market: average daily unique browsers. While monthly unique browser numbers are helpful for providing an historical trend or comparison with ad server results, the data is largely subjected to the effects of cookie generation, whereas average daily unique browser numbers see minimal effect from single users generating multiple cookies. For this reason, Nielsen Online is phasing out the monthly unique browser metric and actively discouraging its clients from using this data, instead relying on the more accurate average daily unique browser metric.

Nielsen Online reports the following year-on-year growth for the top Australian news sites based on average daily unique browsers:

National Nine News - 4%
The Age - 17%
Sydney Morning Herald - 18%
The Australian - 23%
Herald Sun - 62%
news.com.au - 33%
Daily Telegraph - 102%
Courier Mail - 89%

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