In this post, the author predicts 4 more years until the “page view” metric is no more and advertisers/publishers are scrambling to find other ways to measure traffic on a site. This is something I have had in the back of my mind as well. While I’m not interested in attaching a timeline-to-extinction to the page view metric, it is of legitimate concern to us on SuperMotors. We generate revenue via user subscriptions (for advanced site features) and banner advertising. We sell our own banner space but also rely on the likes of Tribal Fusion and Google AdSense to fill our unsold inventory (and there’s a lot of it!). What’s interesting is that with Ajax, you essentially eliminate the need for several page views to navigate a site quickly and easily. Granted, pages will still need to remain, but certain functionality within pages definitely can take advantage of Ajax.

For example, we allow users to post media files to their accounts on SuperMotors. Here is the hierarchy of clicks (from the home page) to post 1 picture, sound, or video:

1. (From Homepage) click “My Garage”
2. Choose “Edit Album” from your list of registry entries (vehicles, atvs, boats, etc.)
3. Choose the album section to add to, or create a new one
4. Select the file you wish to post, click submit.
5. Site refreshes. Repeat for each file. (it should be noted that subscribers can post more files at a time and use drag & drop functionality we have implemented, thus requireing fewer page views at this step)

Including the visit to the homepage and the 5 page views above, that’s 6 total page views. Each page view displays 2 advertisements for our site. That’s 10 total ads being displayed in the course of posting one photo. Add 2 page views for each additional photo/file posted. Our members have posted nearly 300,000 photos, sounds, and videos — over time, this adds up to significant revenue from CPM-based advertising campaigns like Tribal Fusion and our in-house ads.

Now, enter Ajax (which we will be implementing in the next 2-3 months). Ajax could potentially eliminate page refreshes on steps 3-5, thus bringing total page views down from 10 (for 1 file posting) to 3 (for 1 file posting), with no additional page views generated for each file posted. Makes for a superb user experience but at the cost of sacrificing advertising revenue.

So, how do we measure this traffic and use of the website? Or do we? From an analytics standpoint, yes, I want to measure the use of our site even through Ajax functionality so we can determine if users like it, are stumbling with it, or if it doesn’t work at all. From an ad revenue standpoint, Tribal Fusion and Google AdSense policies state that you can’t automatically refresh ad units on a page. So, do we include ad units within the Ajax functionality? There are technically many screens passing by and that’s a lot of potential advertisements to expose a user to, just like we do today with our page view/non-ajax model. Where’s the happy medium?

So, for any site selling ads based on CPM, Ajax is a double-edged sword. Increase usability, decrease revenue.

So, what will the new metric be on Ajax-enabled websites (or Ajax-enabled features within a site)? Time spent on site? Will ads run in 15, 30, or 60-second allotments, similar to television? How will you prevent someone from just leaving a page open forever and allowing ads to rotate through? I’m excited to introduce Ajax to our user base to see how they react to it and also to see how we can best create the best of both worlds: improved usability & sustained revenue.