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

Site	Visits	Performance	Links In	Freshness	Info	Graphics	Gadgets	Colors	Frames	CoolQ	Ads
Lycos Maps	Top 50	Fast	10,725	Excellent	76.1	21.0	0.0	41.0	0.0	0.0	12.0
Map Quest	Top 100	Very Good	139,541	Excellent	60.3	12.0	0.0	22.0	0.0	72.7	4.0
Map Blast (Vicinity Corp)	Top 500	Good	62,013	Excellent	100.0	8.0	2.0	3.0	0.0	100.0	0.0
Microsoft TerraServer	Top 500	Very Good	3,767	Excellent	72.8	48.0	0.0	22.5	0.0	0.0	1.0
US Census Bureau	Top 1,000	Fast	84,588	Excellent	77.0	38.0	0.0	12.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Autodesk: Map Guide	Top 2,500	Very Good	201	Excellent	61.8	9.0	0.0	45.0	0.0	47.6	0.0
Big Book	Top 5,000	Average	1,236	Excellent	40.5	8.0	0.0	20.0	0.0	0.0	1.0
ESRI	Top 5,000	Fast	13,813	Excellent	89.2	6.4	1.4	10.2	0.0	10.1	0.0
Xerox PARC Map Server	Top 5,000	Fair	349	Excellent	61.7	4.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Intergraph	Top 7,500	Very Good	13,903	Excellent	90.7	2.0	0.3	6.3	0.0	0.0	0.0
USGS	Top 10,000	Very Good	41,785	Excellent	51.0	17.0	0.0	0.0	3.0	25.0	0.0
AGI GIS Dictionary (University Of Edinburgh)	Top 25,000	Slow	210	Excellent	88.4	6.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Bentley	Top 25,000	Very Good	8,750	Excellent	81.5	10.0	0.0	2.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
MapInfo	Top 25,000	Good	3,134	Excellent	89.3	35.1	9.7	32.4	2.0	2.5	0.0
Sol Katz Metadata (BLM)	Top 25,000	Very Good	469	Fair	96.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.2	0.0
DeLorme Cyber Maps	Top 50,000	Slow	32	Excellent	82.7	9.5	0.5	10.0	0.0	27.3	0.0
Etak	Top 50,000	Very Good	870	Very Good	93.5	4.3	0.0	9.3	0.0	0.0	0.0
MicroImages (TNT Products)	Top 50,000	Slow	1,100	Excellent	100.0	1.0	1.0	3.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Penn State Map Room (DCW)	Top 75,000	Slow	131	Fair	95.2	4.0	0.2	1.5	0.0	0.0	0.0
AI Geostats	Top 100,000	Slow	221	Excellent	91.4	2.8	0.0	1.3	0.0	4.5	0.0
Claritas	Top 100,000	Slow	210	Very Good	100.0	16.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
GDT	Top 100,000	Average	117	Excellent	81.8	1.0	1.0	2.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
GIS Data Depot	Top 100,000	Slow	248	Excellent	53.6	10.0	2.0	41.7	0.0	0.0	5.0
GIS World	Top 100,000	Fast	830	Excellent	67.3	12.0	1.3	14.4	0.0	4.3	3.6
Applied Geographic Solutions	All Other	Slow	39	Very Good	94.8	7.7	0.0	3.5	0.0	1.6	0.0
Caliper	All Other	Very Good	307	Excellent	95.0	11.1	0.0	21.0	0.0	1.5	0.0
Directions Magazine	All Other	Slow	98	Excellent	66.1	52.3	1.0	50.7	0.0	10.0	3.0
GIS Linx	All Other	Average	527	Good	57.7	5.0	1.0	62.0	0.0	9.7	0.0
Great GIS Net Sites	All Other	Fast	10	Fair	65.6	30.5	0.0	5.5	0.0	25.5	0.0
MapData Online	All Other	Fast	56	Very Good	92.9	5.8	0.2	7.7	0.0	3.6	0.0
Master Environmental Library (MEL)	All Other	Fair	5	Excellent	94.5	13.0	1.0	12.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
National Decision Systems	All Other	Slow	185	Excellent	100.0	3.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Qualitative Marketing Software	All Other	Good	73	Good	90.6	5.3	0.5	4.9	0.0	0.9	0.0
Roelof Oddens's Bookmarks (Utrecht University)	All Other	Fair	23	Excellent	82.0	5.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	0.0	0.0
RPM Information Network	All Other	Very Good	255	Excellent	80.4	3.0	3.0	4.0	0.0	14.3	0.0
Scan US	All Other	Average	78	Excellent	89.9	13.6	1.0	3.4	0.0	7.2	0.0

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

Above are the ratings of some of the major GIS and mapping related websites for October, 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 again, back to "Top 10", "Top 100" etc. as those ratings proved to be more clear than "Top Of The Web", "Top Of The Category", etc. 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.

Beginning in July 1999, we 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, with higher scores indicating more content oriented sites, and lower scores indicating content that may take some "drilling down" to get to, or simply that content may be relatively thin. It is NOT an editorial opinion about the quality of content. 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, again, Lycos leads the way only because it is such a prominent search engine and portal.

These ratings are now 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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