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.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com