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

Site	Visits	Performance	Links In	Freshness	Info	Graphics	Gadgets	Colors	Frames	CoolQ	Ads
Big Book	Top 100	Average	51,580	Excellent	45.9	8.0	0.0	20.0	0.0	0.0	1.0
Lycos Maps	Top 100	Fast	271,988	Excellent	78.1	19.0	0.0	41.0	0.0	0.0	11.0
Map Quest	Top 100	Fast	51,580	Excellent	65.5	10.0	0.0	12.0	0.0	69.2	4.0
Map Blast (Vicinity Corp)	Top Of The Web	Fast	17,786	Excellent	100.0	9.0	2.0	3.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Microsoft TerraServer	Top Of The Web	Fast	2,970	Excellent	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Autodesk: Map Guide	Top Of The Category	Fast	10,899	Excellent	69.0	3.0	0.0	44.0	0.0	45.0	0.0
ESRI	Top Of The Category	Fast	7,106	Excellent	87.5	17.8	0.2	25.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Intergraph	Top Of The Category	Fast	6,104	Excellent	97.8	2.5	0.5	3.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
US Census Bureau	Top Of The Category	Fast	N/A	Excellent	76.6	38.0	0.0	12.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Xerox PARC Map Server	Top Of The Category	Average	20,591	Excellent	61.7	4.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
AGI GIS Dictionary (University Of Edinburgh)	Moderate Traffic	Average	3,609	Excellent	88.4	6.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Bentley	Moderate Traffic	Fast	3,353	Excellent	75.7	7.0	0.0	2.5	0.0	0.0	0.0
DeLorme Cyber Maps	Moderate Traffic	Average	86	Excellent	86.7	8.0	0.5	13.0	0.0	45.5	0.0
Etak	Moderate Traffic	Fast	42,258	Excellent	93.0	4.3	0.0	9.3	0.0	0.0	0.0
GIS Data Depot	Moderate Traffic	Average	216	N/A	100.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
GIS World	Moderate Traffic	Fast	1,293	Excellent	67.9	11.5	1.2	12.4	0.0	3.8	3.7
MapInfo	Moderate Traffic	Fast	1,220	Excellent	82.9	35.4	9.5	33.8	2.0	5.5	0.0
MicroImages (TNT Products)	Moderate Traffic	Average	1,567	Excellent	100.0	1.0	1.0	3.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Penn State Map Room (DCW)	Moderate Traffic	Average	195	Average	95.2	4.0	0.2	1.5	0.0	0.0	0.0
Qualitative Marketing Software	Moderate Traffic	Average	38	Very Good	91.2	5.2	0.5	4.9	0.0	1.0	0.0
Roelof Oddens's Bookmarks (Utrecht University)	Moderate Traffic	Average	392	Excellent	12.5	8.9	0.8	2.8	0.0	4.8	0.0
RPM Information Network	Moderate Traffic	Fast	78	Excellent	65.0	3.0	3.0	4.0	0.0	22.2	0.0
Sol Katz Metadata (BLM)	Moderate Traffic	Fast	399	Excellent	96.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.2	0.0
USGS	Moderate Traffic	Fast	41,369	Excellent	41.5	16.0	0.0	0.0	3.0	0.0	0.0
AI Geostats	All Other	Average	162	Excellent	91.8	2.7	0.0	1.0	0.0	3.7	0.0
Applied Geographic Solutions	All Other	Average	23	Very Good	95.6	7.5	0.0	3.5	0.0	2.4	0.0
Caliper	All Other	Fast	167	Excellent	95.3	11.1	0.0	21.0	0.0	1.4	0.0
Claritas	All Other	Average	172	Very Good	100.0	16.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Directions Magazine	All Other	Average	91	Excellent	64.0	66.0	1.0	58.0	0.0	8.8	3.0
GDT	All Other	Average	108	Very Good	72.4	25.7	2.9	2.7	0.0	2.6	0.0
GIS Linx	All Other	Average	169	Very Good	83.4	2.5	0.0	14.5	2.0	16.2	0.0
Great GIS Net Sites	All Other	Fast	354	Very Good	65.6	30.5	0.0	5.5	0.0	25.5	0.0
MapData Online	All Other	Fast	49	Excellent	92.9	5.8	0.2	7.6	0.0	3.6	0.0
Master Environmental Library (MEL)	All Other	Average	85	Excellent	94.6	13.0	1.0	12.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
National Decision Systems	All Other	Average	184	N/A	100.0	3.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Scan US	All Other	Average	69	Excellent	89.9	11.8	1.0	4.3	0.0	4.6	0.0

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

Above are the ratings of some of the major GIS and mapping related websites for July, 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 beginning with 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.

For July 1999, we have added a number of new measurements suggested by Lincoln Stein of the Cold Spring Harbor Labs. These measurements are based more on sites than merely home pages. Info measures information content vs. links, wih higher scores indicating more content oriented sites. Graphics represents a graphics per page index. Similarly, Gadgets refers to the number of applets and controls per page. Colors refers to what Lincoln Stein calls the TFI or Tutti Frutti Index, how colorful a site is. Frames is exactly what you would imagine, the count of frame tags. The CoolQ or Cool Quotient measures hype, in the form of an index that compares the number of exclamation points, superlatives and other hyperbole per page. Ads refers to the number of ads per page.

Keep in mind 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 quarterly, 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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