I don’t know how long ago it was I begged Google to do a version of Comscore that publishers actually could agree with. (Actually, thanks to site search, here’s my plea). Anyway, here’s a Marketwatch/WSJ story that claims it’s on the way:
Google Inc., the dominant player in Internet searches, is planning to unveil a new service that measures Internet usage utilizing data from Web servers, the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday, citing sources who have been briefed on the plan. The new tool, which can be launched as early as Tuesday, is intended to help advertisers find the best places to buy online ads by showing them the Web sites where their target audiences visit, the newspaper said.
Such a tool must be neutral and not bias advertisers toward buying on Google properties or those that have Google ads, which of course is going to be a perceived bias in any case. Such is the price of being Very Big.
Update: Google Ad Planner announced today. Not sure if this is really a Comscore killer. Sounds like a tool to help folks buy Google Ads to me.
OTOH, the markets are punishing Comscore stock…
For about me all traffic comparing services give wrong results, therefore I use Alexa for years, which can show tendencies.
Of course there would have to be a profit realized in producing such a tool…..
It would seem foolish to produce a tool for public use that would not benefit them financially in the long run.
They probably have private hi tech tools that are just for their objective analysis – but releasing something to the public is another story all together
It will be of great help. As most of the ad companies do cheat people by giving fake popularity.
We also use Alexa to get an idea of traffic & geographical breakup of traffic, so that we can post and plan our ads accordingly.
The benefit to Google is simple. Give better information – Sell more ads.
This is the same kind of information as Google Analytics, just from a different direction.
I think there is potential for Google to abuse this information (manipulate the data – not saying they would), but as long as there are competitors, this should be kept in check.
Yet another brilliant move by Google.
Vi Wickam
Zello Partners
http://www.Zello.us
Online Marketing for Real Business
Eventually, competing publishers will need to get together and do what print publishers did – agree to audit standards. BPA and ABC were not pretty but they became standards that agencies and publishers could rely on. Think it will be difficult to have a publisher (google is a publisher they just don’t like to admit it) create that standard but if they can… bring it on!
To me this feels like a part of Google that gets separated when the govmt eventually breaks google up in 5+ yrs…
I think Google is on the right track…. but personlly I don’t like Google…. their too money hungry..Is anybody really making money, but them?
Hi John: Before celebrating the availability of these products from Google, I think it would be prudent for web site operators to compare their site traffic numbers as obtained from their server logs (or Google Analytics for that matter) with the unique visitor numbers that Google is now publishing through Google Trends and Ad Planner. I think they will be astonished at how much lower Google now says their traffic is.
Well, every good service and info are appreciated… but how they’ll get that info?
This is just an other step in the maturation process of the internet.
Ultimately the market decides.
Phil Schembri
President
Schembri Engineers
http://www.PEInspect.com