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

Site	Visits	Performance	Links In	Freshness
Lycos Maps	Top 50	Fast	255,924	Excellent
Big Book	Top Of The Web	Average	21,520	Excellent
Map Blast (Vicinity Corp)	Top Of The Web	Fast	17,786	Excellent
Map Quest	Top Of The Web	Average	49,941	Excellent
Microsoft TerraServer	Top Of The Web	Average	2,970	Excellent
US Census Bureau	Top Of The Category	Fast	N/A	Excellent
Autodesk: Map Guide	High Traffic	Average	10,762	Excellent
ESRI	High Traffic	N/A	7,128	Excellent
Intergraph	High Traffic	Average	6,104	Excellent
AGI GIS Dictionary (University Of Edinburgh)	Moderate Traffic	Average	3,600	Excellent
Bentley	Moderate Traffic	N/A	3,353	Excellent
Etak	Moderate Traffic	N/A	42,258	Excellent
MapInfo	Moderate Traffic	Average	1,248	Excellent
MicroImages (TNT Products)	Moderate Traffic	Average	1,567	Excellent
Roelof Oddens's Bookmarks (Utrecht University)	Moderate Traffic	Average	392	Excellent
RPM Information Network	Moderate Traffic	Average	225	Excellent
Sol Katz Metadata (BLM)	Moderate Traffic	N/A	N/A	N/A
USGS	Moderate Traffic	Average	N/A	Excellent
Xerox PARC Map Server	Moderate Traffic	Average	875	Excellent
AI Geostats	All Other	Average	162	Excellent
Applied Geographic Solutions	All Other	Average	23	Very Good
Caliper	All Other	Average	166	Excellent
Claritas	All Other	Slow	77	Very Good
DeLorme Cyber Maps	All Other	Average	2,572	Excellent
Directions Magazine	All Other	Average	24	Excellent
GDT	All Other	Average	135	Very Good
GIS Data Depot	All Other	Average	86	Very Good
GIS Linx	All Other	Average	169	Very Good
GIS World	All Other	Fast	1,311	Excellent
Great GIS Net Sites	All Other	Average	354	Very Good
MapData Online	All Other	Fast	49	Excellent
Master Environmental Library (MEL)	All Other	Average	12	Excellent
National Decision Systems	All Other	Average	184	Very Good
Penn State Map Room (DCW)	All Other	Average	195	Average
Qualitative Marketing Software	All Other	Fast	38	Very Good
Scan US	All Other	Average	69	Excellent

September, 1998
October, 1998
November, 1998
December, 1998
January, 1999

Above are the ratings of some of the major GIS and mapping related websites for April, 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. We have also changed the traffic designations for the April 1999 ratings -- to "Top Of The Web", for the very top sites overall; "Top Of The Category"; "High Traffic"; "Moderate Traffic"; and "All Other". 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, while at the same time the publisher may actually show a lower hit count on its own web stats due to the caches. Some of these sites, like ESRI, are map and GIS centered; others, like Lycos Maps or even Microsoft Terra Server, 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. Microsoft appears to be doing something even slicker with Terra Server, which appears to have a unique domain but apparently does not, as the site registration dates to 1991, long before Terra Server.

These ratings will be updated monthly, or when significant changes are recorded, 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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