CReATION: CNNIC poll dropped due to lack of website development in China

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) scrapped its

ranking of the top 10 websites in China, taking heed of continued

criticism regarding the credibility of the much publicised poll, because

of the underdeveloped status of the mainland Internet market, a senior

executive at CNNIC said.

Before it was axed, the poll had been part of the biannual "Statistical

Report on China's Internet Network Development".

"The poll conducted by CNNIC has been temporarily been put on hold,"

confirmed CNNIC deputy office director Wu Yangyi, adding that

"considering the development of websites in the country, the situation

is not mature for us to conduct the poll at the present."

In June this year, leading mainland websites and other industry

institutions had criticised the poll, which asked mainland Internet

users to identify their most preferred top 10 websites, saying that the

poll was prone to manipulation, while also qustioning the methodology of

the ranking.

Leading industry experts complained that there were possibilities of

cheating in the CNNIC ratings and although CNNIC had been trying to

avoid this, it was impossible to prevent.

Also, the lack of differentiation between different types of websites

being polled in China made it impossible to draw any conclusions from

the ratings.

Game pages, ecommerce sites and web portals must be measured according

to different standards if a meaningful ranking of the most popular

websites is to be determined.

But although websites have criticised the poll in the past, they have

also found it difficult to stay away and lose out on the opportunity to

be named as China's top 10 websites.

While the winner of the last poll Sina.com opposed the ranking and CEO

Wang Zhidong did not attend the conference announcing the Web winners,

the website did not remove itself from CNNIC consideration.

The survey has in the past been an important marketing tool in raising a

website's profile and has been instrumental for venture capital

fundraising and attracting online advertising.

Until last year, the poll was given little attention, but with an

increasing number of websites and escalating competition for dwindling

cash reserves, methods of raising the company profile have also

risen.

Considering the facts, industry experts agree that it is best to halt

the poll, while they also agree that the CNNIC semiannual "Statistical

Report on China's Internet Network Development" which CNNIC will

continue to conduct - is otherwise useful.

The statistical report is issued every January and July and covers data

including statistics on the number of China Internet subscribers,

registered domain names, technical details on international bandwidth of

the networks, as well as the number of websites.

Further sections look at geographic distribution and other

characteristics of Internet subscribers, as well as Internet usage,

including user habits and opinions on Internet-related topics.

So far there are few alternatives to the official CNNIC report and lack

of standardisation of research methodology remains a problem in the

mainland.

"What we need in China is different types of research so that we can

cross reference and come up with a result, says DoubleClick country

manager for China Kelvin Cheng.

"It takes time for research services to establish themselves," he

continued, "but there are lots of companies coming into the market at

present."

But recommended Mr Cheng, "CNNIC is already widely accepted in the

industry so they should adopt new methodology and continue their

research."

While CNNIC is still debating if and how it will resume conducting the

poll, others are already predicting that transnational surveys eagerly

step in to replace the who's who in China's websites.

Source: CMM Intelligence.