Will page views go into oblivion?

Filed in archive AJAX on July 18, 2007

It seems so as it is being reported that page view ranking method would be replaced with the amount of time a visitor spends on the website. The problem with page views started to crop up when Ajax started making headway and we know that it sends pageviews on the back foot. Nielsen will be degrading the importance of pageviews but it won't be scrapped. It's just that it would not come within the domain of formal ranking.

We had seen the page views for Yahoo plummet when it incorporated Ajax and this had led to its ranking getting dropped. Now more emphasis will be placed on the length of time a visitor remains on the site and this too is expected to cause a lot of ups and downs in the ranking of websites. In case of Google and host of other sites which are known for their speed and efficiency it may create problems since time spent on site may not be a good criteria for deciding their popularity. In case of blogs it could be beneficial since it could help in differentiating between quality and poor content. It's a welcoming step since it would help in moving away from the concept of pageviews which tends to be exploited by websites for their benefit.