ComScore to Launch Hybrid Approach to Web Measurement

By: Jennifer Saba Online measurement company comScore is changing the way it tracks Web site traffic with a new hybrid approach with Media Metrix 360 that includes counting server-side client data.

Media Metrix 360 still measures Web usage through panels of participants -- comScore said it maintains a panel of 2 million people worldwide -- but now it will take into account information gathered at the site's servers.

"Through comScore's 'panel-centric hybrid' approach to audience measurement, we are able to combine the best of both worlds of panel and server-side measurement to bring the industry a comprehensive accounting of the complete digital media universe," Magid Abraham, comScore's president and CEO, said in a statement.

"Furthermore, this new approach will effectively reconcile panel and server-based measurement and provide unified numbers that are fully consistent with the ad server counts used for advertising payments," he continued.

ComScore plans to roll out Media Metrix 360 first in the United States and Canada in July. Data will be published in August 2009.

The company developed a new "universe report" that will provide information including where Web sites are accessed -- via mobile devices, computers outside of home and work at places like Internet cafes, schools and libraries. The report will supplement the traditional home and work universe data with server-side data to account for a site's complete usage, comScore said.

Critics contend that metrics provided by panel based companies like comScore and Nielsen Online under count the number of people visiting a Web site. The panels are nationally based and for newspapers, at least, the firms extrapolate data down to the market-level. (Nielsen Online is owned by E&P's parent company).

There are other ways of measuring Web usage, including through software provided by companies such as Omniture, which collects data at the site's server. Site-centric data, some argue, over-count users. For example, it does not take into account someone who might visit a Web site from their home and then again at the office.

Companies like Quantcast take a hybrid approach.

ComScore said in a statement that the new methodology will "eliminate the long-standing confusion about the differences between internal client metrics and publicly reported third-party estimates." The company claims it can more accurately calculate audience reach in a manner that is "not effected by distortions such as cookie deletion, cookie rejection or non-user requested traffic."

Clients who use comScore can choose to embed beacons that sit on a site and signal back to comScore when there is a visitor.

For more about panel and site-centric metrics, go here (subscription required).