Comments on: Yahoo Calls Hitwise Report Claiming MySpace #1 Internet Site Misleading

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:23:00 +0000

I work at Compete and we felt our data would be useful in clearing up the MySpace vs Yahoo confusion regarding which is bigger.

Compete's analysis (which can be found on our blog) indicates Yahoo dominates MySpace in-terms of visitors (advanage 64M and change), but that MySpace surpassed Yahoo in January in terms of page views (advantage 15B).

See the blog for trended graphics.

blog.compete.com
Thanks.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 02:57:00 +0000

Hitwise data is a joke. They use ISP’s and look at log file data. They will not disclose the ISP’s they use but in Australia the three biggest don’t provide their data. The three biggest make up most of the broadband audience and at least 60% of the market. I figure only measuring at the most 40% of the market is going to have some bias. Hitwise don’t deserve the kudos.

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:07:00 +0000

I don’t think my article triggered a Google alert. More likely a smart intern who knows how to use Technorati!

By: Redmond Cooper

Redmond Cooper — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:06:00 +0000

I always figured they used google alerts

By: Bryan "Accident" Socha

Bryan "Accident" Socha — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:43:00 +0000

> Do they have proof that each of those 129 million “unique visitors” is a separate person? If not, how can they claim that the volume of visitors to their site “represents 74 percent of the online population.”

There are defacto industry standards for how to determine how many unique users there are. Well theres not, but there are methods that each auditing/rating company uses. this is why the industry tends to stick with a specific company for its numbers. Usually its the most reputable organization like nielson.

By: Bryan "Accident" Socha

Bryan "Accident" Socha — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:43:00 +0000

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:33:00 +0000

My understanding is that hitwise data is not very usefull, as they have monitoring boxes in 2nd tier ISP’s, but not comcast and SBC etc.

I asked a friend in the know about the 8% of google’s traffic coming from myspace report they came out with and he dismissed it immediately as more bad data from hitwise.

By: Eric E

Eric E — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:31:00 +0000

Speaking of misleading, the way Yahoo equates "unique visitors" with individual people is misleading.

Do they have proof that each of those 129 million "unique visitors" is a separate person? If not, how can they claim that the volume of visitors to their site "represents 74 percent of the online population."

If I visit a Yahoo site from my office computer, then visit it from my home computer, does that make me two different people? No. So how do they know how much of the online population visits their sites?

Answer: they don't.

Yahoo needs to be a bit more careful about making unsubstantiated claims in an e-mail that complains about the unsubstantiated claims of another company.