A copy of the article from the sadly departed NMA website:
| Fri, 1 Oct 2010 | By Sebastian Joseph published in NMA |
The beta version of the resource lists sites across industry vertical sectors automotive, community, entertainment, finance, media, property, retail, sports, technology and travel by the number of unique visitors received each month.
Page impressions and rate card metrics will also be published, available exclusively to new media age subscribers as a complimentary resource.
Originally produced during the dotcom boom, nma’s Traffic Update has been relaunched to fulfil a perceived need in the market for manually checked metrics.
Metrics from the automotive, property and sport verticals will launch today, with the remaining eight sectors set to follow over the coming months.
Some of the site owners already signed up include 2View Group, The Digital Sports Network and Auto Trader.
“Although we’re a new business, we own 47 .co.uk URLs, so initiatives like Traffic Update are a good way for us to raise our profile,” said Tony Ragan at the Digital Sports Network. “From a business point of view, it’s important to get references and benchmarks across the industry and see what other companies are doing.”_
Designed to sit alongside established site measurement services from companies like ComScore and Hitwise, Traffic Update will consist of metrics collected manually by new media age directly from participating site owners each month.
Despite expressing concern over the need for greater clarity around the nature of data published in Traffic Update, Paul Goode, head of industry relations at ComScore Europe, felt it was a good initiative.
“The industry is going through a process of consolidation when web analytics and media measurement departments are coming together,” he said. “As this happens there needs to be greater transparency and awareness around data, which Traffic Update could provide.”_
Sean Reilly, marketing manager of 2View Group, whose viewlondon.co.uk is one of the sites already taking part, echoed Goode’s reservations but felt transparent charts in trade publications was the “true mark” of a maturing industry.
“Charts that measure an industry’s performance are only truly of interest if they’re public,” he said. “This is the only way buyers can make the right decisions and sellers can set the right prices without having to spend half their day hunting down the information. Markets only work effectively when standardised metrics are publicised and in a single location.”_
ABC Electronic MD Richard Foan felt that although Traffic Update could educate the industry and gain an understanding of traffic within a particular sector, it needs to be based on industry agreed standards, as with any other media channel.
“Transparency is key to the success of Traffic Update. Clearly identifying where the data has been sourced, verified and audited will allow readers to make an informed judgment on how the data is presented and interpreted,” he said.
Justin Pearse, editor of new media age, said, “Traffic Update is complementary to existing sources of data on website traffic. The manually compiled resource is in its early stages of development and we hope the industry will welcome its arrival and support its expansion. Please get in touch to give me your thoughts on how we can develop it into a useful tool for your business.””
Traffic Update is avaible to nma.co.uk/data/trafficupdate
| [new media age launches Traffic Update site traffic resource | News | New Media Age](https://web.archive.org/web/20110607164112/http://www.nma.co.uk/news/new-media-age-launches-traffic-update-site-traffic-resource/3018865.article). |