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Lemak Lemang

A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Jeff Ooi, Malaysia

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Lie detector for Web traffic?

Mar 11, 2007 19:08

How reliable can it be when Web site owners make claims about their visitor traffic?

The big question will get answered when the Audit Bureau of Circulations Malaysia (ABCM) launches an audit process for Web sites later in the year as more businesses look to advertising on the Internet.

The plan to auditing Web site traffic was revealed at the ABCM's March 8 launch of the "Lie Detector" campaign to encourage local magazines to get their circulation figures audited.

The campaign aims to inform advertisers, media planners and buyers to ask unaudited publications for audited circulation data as "advertising decisions are based on subjective factors".

ABCM chairman Henry Tan, who is also the CEO of Group M Malaysia and Singapore, said currently there are only 20 percent among the 300-odd magazines printed in Malaysia which are members of ABCM and get their circulation audited in accordance to global standards.

Tan said there is a need to audit Web site traffic to help build the credibility of online media.

"Web sites normally claim that that they have considerable hit rates, but we do not know how to rely on their figures," said Tan in Oriental Daily News.

Tan added that with the advancement in technology, advertisers are starting to invest their advertising budgets in the Internet, and online media is now emerging as new channels for advertising.

"As such, ABCM feels that there is a need to audit Web site traffic to justify the advertisers' investment in online media," he added.

He said there is no restriction to Web site owners who want their Web traffic audited.

"It doesn't matter if these Web sites are news Web sites, Internet portals or individuals' Web sites. So long as they carry advertisements they can have their Web traffic audited," Tan said.

That said, further details on ABCM's methodology of auditing Web traffic are not available for scrutiny at the moment.

Currently, ABCM conducts its verification process once a year for magazines, and twice a year for newspapers.

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paultantk

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paultantk says...
Currently, I provide potential advertisers web statistics generated by Google Analytics. I think that is a trusted or pretty much audited statistics source.

Mar 12, 2007 17:22

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About Jeff Ooi

Jeff Ooi is an Internet and e-Business consultant based in Kuala Lumpur who's spent the last four years blogging internationally on the tech scene, on anything and nothing. Which doesn't really explain why most of his own technology is about three years out of date. He doesn't even own a PDA after his Palm V crashed. He's on 3G, though... Lemak Lemang refers to coconut-flavored sticky rice stuffed in a bamboo container.