Setting the scene: the biggest sites in the UK by the traditional “page-view”

- Google has the most web pages viewed in the UK, 3.8 billion, followed by eBay 3.7 billion and Yahoo! 2 billion

- Facebook has the most pages viewed per UK visitor, 466, followed by Bebo at 436 and eBay at 256

NetRatings found that these sites aren’t necessarily the strongest performers by visits or time per visitor. Amazon, for example, is ranked 9th by total page views but only 72nd by time per visitor and 95th by visits per visitor

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, said: “The page view has been the traditional measure for advertisers to compare which websites provide the most opportunities to display their ads to consumers. The large portals and social networking sites tend to dominate this way of looking at engagement.

"The technology that publishers use to deliver content to the user moves away from static, reloaded pages to more streamlined content – e.g. online videos - the page-view is becoming a less relevant gauge of where might be the best place to advertise online. Consequently advertisers will have to look at other metrics, such as time spent or visits, to see where their online ad pound might be best spent.”

How do visits stack up as a measure of engagement?

- Google and MSN/Windows Live are the leading websites in the UK by total visits and visits per visitor

- Liverpool FC, Tiscali and RuneScape are the three sites that appear in the visits per visitor top ten but not in the total page views top ten (they ‘replace’ Fox Interactive Media (MySpace), Amazon and Virgin Media)

Burmaster explains: “As page views tend to discriminate against audio or video content sites, some argue that visits is the best measure of engagement as it measures the ‘stickiness’ of a site or people’s loyalty towards it.

"However, the biggest and most popular sites tend to be the leading sites in terms of visits and this metric doesn’t distinguish whether someone visited for one second, one minute or one hour."

How time shows eBay and RuneScape to be the most engaging sites in the UK

- In February 2007, Britons spent almost 28 million hours on eBay – making it the most engaging site by total time, however, RuneScape is the most engaging site by average time spent per visitor (6 hours 32 minutes)

- Games brands account for four of the top seven sites by average time per visitor - RuneScape, Electronic Arts, King.com and Adventure Quest. However, none of these four sites are in the top 50 by total page views

Burmaster continues: “Time and page views can portray a very different picture of engagement. The page view, for example, has always discriminated against games sites, whose content is consumed seamlessly as opposed to viewing successive pages – e.g. more akin to watching TV as opposed to reading a book. Time is becoming more of a factor when looking at the ad opportunity online – as shown by the growth in brands engaging in ‘advergaming’ (in-game advertising).

"Time covers all web environments and provides an accurate trend in a pre- and post- Web 2.0 world with the increasing use of new Internet technologies. Advertisers will need to be aware of the whole picture painted by the different metrics."

www.netratings.com

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