RPM Information Network: GIS
Web Site Domain Ratings, January 1999

Site	Visits	Performance	Links In	Freshness
Lycos Maps	Top 50	Average	364,111	Excellent
Big Book	Top 500	Average	3,277	Excellent
Microsoft TerraServer	Top 500	Average	463,259	Excellent
Map Quest	Top 500	Average	20,212	Excellent
Map Blast (Vicinity Corp)	Top 500	Slow	3,639	N/A
US Census Bureau	Top 1,000	Average	47,306	Excellent
Autodesk: Map Guide	Top 5,000	Fast	11,195	Excellent
DeLorme Cyber Maps	Top 5,000	Average	3,048	N/A
ESRI	Top 5,000	Average	5,108	Excellent
Intergraph	Top 5,000	Average	5,942	Excellent
MapInfo	Top 5,000	Average	1,211	Excellent
USGS	Top 10,000	Fast	23,474	Excellent
Xerox PARC Map Server	Top 10,000	Slow	479	Excellent
Bentley	Top 50,000	Average	2,875	Excellent
Etak	Top 50,000	Slow	692	Excellent
MicroImages (TNT Products)	Top 50,000	Average	1,374	Excellent
Roelof Oddens's Bookmarks (Utrecht University)	Top 50,000	Fast	520	Excellent
RPM Information Network	Top 50,000	Average	185	Excellent
Sol Katz Metadata (BLM)	Top 50,000	Slow	2,584	Excellent
AGI GIS Dictionary (University Of Edinburgh)	Top 50,000	Average	3,935	Excellent
Caliper	Top 100,000	Average	105	Excellent
Claritas	Top 100,000	Slow	103	Very Good
Directions Magazine	Top 100,000	N/A	11	N/A
GDT	Top 100,000	Slow	135	Excellent
GIS World	Top 100,000	Average	1,625	Excellent
National Decision Systems	Top 100,000	Average	114	Excellent
Penn State Map Room (DCW)	Top 100,000	Average	173	Good
Qualitative Marketing Software	Top 100,000	Average	25	Very Good
AI Geostats	Moderate Traffic	Slow	47	Excellent
Applied Geographic Solutions	Moderate Traffic	N/A	15	N/A
GIS Linx	Moderate Traffic	Slow	251	Excellent
Great GIS Net Sites	Moderate Traffic	Slow	402	Very Good
MapData Online	Moderate Traffic	N/A	6	N/A
Master Environmental Library (MEL)	Moderate Traffic	Average	115	N/A
Scan US	Moderate Traffic	Average	177	Very Good

September, 1998
October, 1998
November, 1998
December, 1998

Above are the ratings of some of the major GIS and mapping related websites for January, 1999. Note that in 1999 we no longer attempt to count the number of pages residing on a site, since so many pages are now being dynamically created from databases. Another consideration is that the most popular sites may indeed be less popular than they look, because the cache-count methodology tends to overstate these. Some of these sites, like ESRI, are map and GIS centered; others, like Lycos Maps, prominently serve maps or feature other GIS or mapping-related content. The statistics are derived using web, network and server diagnostic tools. Visits reflects how a site rates among all sites on the Web with reference to the number of unique visits. This is based on hit counts recorded from various caches on the Internet backbone. Performance refers to the average amount of time it takes to display a page, with "Fast" equating to transfer rates of 50Kbps or higher; "Average" at about the speed of a 28.8 or 33.6 dial-up modem, and "Slow" reflecting transfer speeds of a 14.4 dial-up modem or below. The speed ratings are compiled based on a periodic archival update of the Web. Links In reflects how many other sites are linking in to a domain, which reflects how valuable its resources are considered to be by peer and related sites, portals, etc. Freshness refers to how recently the site has been updated, determined by analyzing the dates of pages found during periodic web crawls, with the freshest 5% of all pages on a site evaluated to determine their average age.

Also remember that in addition to the fact that some of these sites are dedicated or largely dedicated to GIS and others are not, that some sites place their mapping or GIS content on a seperate domain, and some do not. For example, Lycos leads the way only because it is such a prominent search engine and portal, and that while it appears that Autodesk has a separate domain for Map Guide, it actually references the main domain -- thus, most of the visits to Lycos or even Autodesk have nothing to do with maps or GIS. Conversely, Microsoft has a unique domain for its relatively new TerraServer, and the number of visits and links in to this unique domain is quite impressive.

Finally, keep in mind that the designation "Moderate Traffic" is an "everybody else" designation for sites that are not among the Top 100,000 on the web in terms of unique visits.

These ratings will be updated monthly, so do come on back and see us. If you have a site you'd like us to rate, just let us know.

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