Web Audit Hits North Asia

The first Web company in North Asia to receive a Web Audit just posted the results. PricewaterhouseCoopers [1] (PwC) performed the audit. Outblaze [2], the market leader in the development and provision of portal services, hired the Big 5 firm to monitor the site for one month. PwC confirmed that the site registers an average of 8 million-plus page views a day (as of March 28).

Information that comes from a third party often helps would-be clients feel comfortable about a purchase. It also combats the growing concern about unsubstantiated site traffic figures. In other words, the traffic data isn’t being reported by a party that has a vested purpose – the agencies which create the ads, Web site publishers promoting their own sites, or network operators marketing their own networks.

PwC’s innovative Web Audit offers a fully independent analysis of controls over the end-to-end measurement processes used to capture and produce key site traffic figures and other web metrics. As Internet companies struggle to differentiate their Web sites, Web Audits may become a source of differentiation.

One of the key problems a Web Audit can overcome is defining how a dot com defines its visitors. A page view is different than a member but the terminology sometimes is used in a haphazard way among companies. A Web Audit alleviates the gray area and provides a black and white picture of the traffic a Web site enjoys.

Once obtained, PwC's Web Audit assurance is valid for a fixed period, typically 90 days, renewable subject to subsequent update work for further periods. A company may even choose to post the results [3] on their Web site.