Yahoo! Benefits/Suffers From The Ajax Effect

So the big news this week is that MySpace is now the number one site on the net in terms of monthly page views. Yahoo! was the previous leader, but there was a drop off this month which put them in second. While this is kind of a good thing for ColdFusion - assuming they keep things running smoothly :) - it's a bit misleading for Yahoo! as this exact day was predicted long ago before they even launched the new home page.

But reading a little more into it, one can see that the drop-off in page views can be attributed to Yahoo!'s recent foray into Ajax. Everything from the Yahoo! front page, to mail, news, television, etc., has been getting an Ajax once-over at Yahoo. But what's better for the consumer is not always better for the site - on the surface anyway.

People have been warning that the web is in need of better metrics than the page-view. That has never been more true than now. I can only imagine how some of the better-designed, one-page Ajax sites might show up as a mere blip on the radar screen which can be misleading.

Going a step further, it could be argued that MySpace has stayed away from Ajax on purpose just to pump up their page views. I'll refer you to this study by Mike Davidson of Netvibes.com which points out how MySpace could cut their page views by over 2/3rds if they wanted to. So until traffic analyzers learn to deal with Ajax, take what you read with a grain of salt!