Re: who do you trust?

From: Allen Wyke <allen_wyke_at_engage.com>
Date: Thu 05 Oct 2000 15:54:30 -0500

CHIP CANTY <ccanty_at_bellatlantic.net> WROTE:
> My question: have we come to expect (and accept)
> inaccurate reporting in this industry? By all
> players, or just a few?

One of the first questions I would have to you here,
and you raise a very good point, is "are you stripping
out bad counts"? For instance, do you count requests
from spiders, crawlers, etc. - counts that never get
rendered in front of a person? Additionally, do you
count on the server-side (count insertions) rather than
on the request by the browser (like in <img> calls)? My
first guess here is that you have 2 different counting
methodologies - 2 different ones.

Simply asking these two questions to your technical
folks will most likely point you to why you are seeing
this. If they can't answer it, then you should consider
having someone take a deeper look into these items.
Unfortunately, the devil is in the details and until
some group standardizes what counting is acceptable,
then arguable, although this doesn't help you at all,
everyone is right.

One a side note, in choosing a counting methodology
stay away from anyone provider that proclaims
themselves as "the standard", because the fact is there
is not one. Look for companies and systems that know
what the real issues are and that are flexible enough
to allow you to count in a way that best fits your
model. Additionally, stay away from anyone that says
"if the browser acts like it is suppose to, then we are
fine", because again, the fact is that browser's do not
count the way they are suppose to. If they did, this
would not be an issue.

Allen

Director, Product Technology
awyke_at_engage.com
Engage Software
3020 Highwoods Blvd. 919.719.4603
Raleigh, NC 27604 ICQ#: 27822748





Received on Thu Oct 05 2000 - 15:54:30 CDT