A newly formed website umbrella body, Website Association of South Africa (WASA), has launched a brand-new web metrics and rankings system for the country. So far it consists of 97 sites and about 20 publishers. At first glance, WASA’s stats appear to be overwhelmingly taken from the Online Publishers Association (OPA) Nielsen//Netratings rankings and a few other sites in the country, namely MyAdsl and Bidorbuy, who are using Google Analytics. Google analytics seems to be the benchmark currency for the new system.
The main analytics system up till now has been that of the OPA, which is a non-profit body, which runs its stats with Nielsen//Netratings. The OPA consists mainly of the country’s commercial online publishers, who sell online advertising as their primary revenue streams. It looks like WASA is aiming to provide rankings and stats for a broader base of websites, which include e-commerce sites, corporate/company sites and also blogs, which is a good thing, and there is a need for it in the market.
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WASA says it was “formed to provide a platform for South African websites to publish their statistics and demographics. The aim of WASA is to provide a link between websites and interested industry players like advertising agencies and marketing companies.”
The people behind the new initiative include Bid or Buy’s Andy Higgins and Rudolph Muller from Mybroadband.
