Top news sites for January 2008
Michael Gay February 14th, 2008
Here’s the Nielsen-Netratings monthly list for news sites (ranked by uniques followed by time on site):
1. Yahoo! News - 36,074,000 - 0:23:58
2. CNN Digital Network - 35,598,000 - 0:41:58
3. MSNBC Digital Network - 35,410,000 - 0:30:00
4. AOL News - 23,732,000 - 0:31:12
5. NYTimes.com -20,461,000 - 0:35:47
Every site in the top 5 increased uniques from the previous month. Proof that NNR numbers differ from internal numbers, Cory posted below that MSNBC reported 94 million uniques. That’s 59 million more than Nielsen reports.
8 Comments Add your own
1. Keith | February 14th, 2008 at 7:49 am
ZoogaTV.com is all news video site that is experiencing a lot uniques growth
2. tdc | February 14th, 2008 at 8:09 am
so add 59 million to each of the players. did it change the order?
it might be better to note the huge number gained by msnbc month to month… nippin at cnn’s heals.
is it a one month fluke?
3. Rob | February 14th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Are they using the same tools to judge how much traffic these sites are getting?
Is there a standard yet for online metrics that everyone has bought in on?
4. tdc | February 14th, 2008 at 10:58 am
nope.
it’s a “simple discrepancy” according to ’someone’ around here.
5. pfk | February 14th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Our internal numbers are twice what MediaMetrix reports, and that’s using internal logs, Omniture and HBX. We’re talking out by millions of uniques and page views.
I think MM and Nielsen do fairly report comparative strength, but actually uniques/views - nope, no way.
6. metricsdude | February 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
MMX and NNR data typically is US-only. That’s one big difference. The other big difference is that internal data typically counts cookies and doesn’t take into account (or doesn’t fully take into account) duplication of cookies. Each user could have, and typically has, multiple cookies served to her from a site during a month–but internal data often counts each of these cookies as a unique user. MMX and NNR are MUCH better sources for actual audience estimates for sites that have a national presence–truly the gold standard. Re: PV, internal data often counts multiple URLs for the same “page view” while MMX and NNR count just one of the many URLs that typically load with each window full of stuff–this typically accounts for internal data showing way more PV than MMX or NNR data.
7. Every Internet Game - Online Games | February 15th, 2008 at 3:32 am
i like CNN and Times
CNN for the up-to-date world news
Times for the in-depth articles on serious world issues
those are my top 2
8. Rocker | February 19th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Metricsdude: Having studied both the syndicated data (MMX, NNR) and Omniture/HBX data for years, I’m convinced that while both have limitations, Omniture/HBX is a more accurate reflection of site traffic. Despite what they say, it appears that the syndicated surveys are not capturing the at-work audience. They also consistently show 50%+ of TV station website audiences coming from OUTSIDE their natuve DMAs…given how (unfortunately) the majority of TV site visits are one-time-only events driven by on-air mentions, 50% out of DMA is simply not plausible. Moreover, at least when it comes to local market websites, the syndicated data does not trend (meaning, it’s not consistent), which is another red flag.
The Omniture/HBX counts are also quite closely tracked by a completely separate measure, which is your ad server, such as DoubleClick. So I agree with pfk, the syndicated data is the best (only) source of comparative/competitive info, but if you want to know about your own audience, Omniture is better.
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