Media Metrix Ratings

Media Metrix, the PC Meter Company, provides web site ratings based on a sample of actual web surfers. It has meters installed on the computers of about 12,000 home web surfers and 1,500 at work web users. Information is then compiled to produce its results.

Media Metrix is the oldest, user-based ratings service on the web. It has been providing results since mid-1996. It merged with competitor Relevant Knowledge in October 1998, and it competes with NetRatings (see below).

For more on Media Metrix, click here
For Search Engine Watch's Engine Comparison Charts, click here

NetRatings

NetRatings uses software to monitor a panel of web surfers, a sample of about 3,500 at home users, 18 years and older. It analyzes the data to provide audience projections and demographics to its subscribers.

NetRatings began releasing data in March 1998, though this page begins with June 1998 data. Its closest rival is Media Metrix

For more on NetRatings, click here
For Search Engine Watch's Engine Comparison Charts, click here

Directory/Engine

This looks at whether service is primarily an Internet Directory (a collection of sites broken into categories) or a Search Engine (an index of catalogued sites that have been spidered) and how the information is compiled.

Submission Wait Time

This is the average amount of time it takes from when a site is submitted to be reviewed or indexed to the time it takes to actually appear on the engine or directory. This is assuming, of course, that the submission was successful.

Support Frames

This indicates whether the search engine's spidering software can navigate through a frames site and index it.

Support Metatags

This indicates whether the search engine's spidering software supports the keyword and description (as well as others) metatags.

Deep Crawl

This indicates whether a search engine indexes only the page submitted or whether it follows links and indexes the entire site from the page submitted.