Easily among the more misunderstood concepts about the Internet is the reliability and ability to measure how popular something is. There’s this notion that since one can count hits to one’s web servers, there must exist very accurate measurements of audience metrics. The reality is much more complicated. For example, the web servers are owned by the company running the web site, hardly an impartial bystander in the reporting of audience metrics. Technical issues also make it very difficult to identify humans from automated programs (like search engines). In the end, the methods used for ad rates tend to be a throwback to the way TV ratings are done. While these numbers are considered more reliable than web server stats, they’re not perfect for a number of reasons.
Take a recent example, as MySpace just passed longtime audience leader Yahoo in total pageviews in comScore’s metrics. The announcement has been met with a great deal of skepticism. Ultimately, people who want to live by these numbers, who shift their ad dollars based on who’s “most popular” or “the biggest” need to understand what they’re spending against, and understand the methodology of the measurement firm they choose to consider the final arbiter of these titles. At the end of the day, there really isn’t going to be a 100% accurate count.