Google traffic tool not sufficiently robust
By Pulkit Sharma

Contractor UK (CUK) is the most popular niche site for IT contractors in the United Kingdom.  By any measure, it outclasses its competitors.   It March 2008, CUK said that it had received about 250,000 unique visitors. More visitors mean more ad revenue. Contractor UK’s use of Google Analytics to claim huge internet traffic has been successfully challenged by a rival in UK.

Google, as the top search engine in the world, has developed tools like Analytics which are used by tens of thousands of businesses around the world. It is a fairly accurate tool in detailing the traffic that comes to any website.

The British Advertising Standards Authority Council oversees advertising in UK and ensures that advertisements do not make exaggerated claims or offend public sensibilities.

A smaller business rival made a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority challenging the 250K visitors in March, 2008 shown by Google Analytics for the Contractor UK (CUK) website. 

The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has now ruled that Google Analytics figures of 250 unique visitors were "insufficiently robust".  The ASA report said: “We understood that the software used by Contractor UK could deliver unique user figures to JICWEBS Industry agreed standards if it was correctly implemented; however, we understood that, because the figures had not been audited, it was not possible to know if the software had been correctly implemented. We considered that, because of those problems in the measuring of the data, the evidence CUK had sent was not sufficiently robust to substantiate their unique visitor claims.”

The ASA is recommending that all Google Analytics internet traffic figures be ‘independently audited’.

Contractor UK in undeterred by what it sees as an unfair judgment and wrote on its website: “Based on the evidence we provided, the Council noted that the data showed we did indeed receive the visitor numbers we advertised so the ruling on substantiation is incredibly frustrating and frankly doesn’t make any sense. Cookie-based tracking is approved by JICWEBS. ABCe themselves informed us that cookie-based tracking is the preferred method in terms of accuracy. As visitors are uniquely identified this rules out double counting and GA specifically excludes robots and spiders from its reporting. All of this plus proof of correct implementation was conveyed to the ASA Council to no avail. The decision is deeply flawed in our opinion. This ruling will strike fear into the many other businesses that also depend on being able to advertise their traffic. Few online businesses currently audit and with the cost of just one month’s auditing (including a registration fee) being a minimum of just over four thousand pounds, this is extremely prohibitive for the world outside of national newspaper sites, especially in today’s tough climate.”

In India, a number of popular websites and blogs use Google Analytics to sell advertising.  Unlike UK,   there will be no immediate pressure to get their claims about internet traffic independently audited.