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`Background
`Consistent and accurate measurement of Internet advertising is critical for acceptance of the
`Internet and is an important factor in the growth of Internet advertising spending.
`This document establishes a detailed definition for ad-impressions, which is a critical component
`of Internet measurement and provides certain guidelines for Internet advertising sellers (herein
`referred to as “media companies” or “sites”) and ad serving organizations (including third-party ad
`servers and organizations that serve their own ads) for establishing consistent and accurate meas-
`urements.
`Additionally, this document is intended to provide information to users of Internet measurements
`on the origin of key metrics, a roadmap for evaluating the quality of procedures applied by media
`companies and/or ad serving organizations, and certain other definitions of Internet measurement
`metrics, which are in various stages of discussions (Appendix B).
`The definitions included in this document and the applicable project efforts resulted from
`requests from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and other members of
`the buying community, who asked for establishment of consistent counting methods and defini-
`tions and for improvement in overall counting accuracy. The definitions and guidelines contained
`in this document originated from a two-phase project led by the Interactive Advertising Bureau
`(IAB) and facilitated by the Media Rating Council (MRC), with the participation of the Advertising
`Research Foundation (ARF), as a result of these requests. Phase 1 was conducted from May
`through December 2001, and Phase 2, which resulted in the current Version 2.0, was conducted
`during 2003 and 2004. Both phases are described in more detail below.
`FAST Definitions (dated September 3, 1999; FAST was an organization formed by Procter &
`Gamble and the media industry to address Internet measurement issues several years ago which
`is no longer active) were considered in preparation of this document. The original FAST language
`was maintained wherever possible.
`Definitions of terms used in this document can be found in the IAB’s Glossary of Interactive Terms.
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`The IAB’s Ad Campaign Measurement Project
`In May 2001 the IAB initiated a project intended to determine the comparability of online advertis-
`ing measurement data provided by a group of Internet organizations. The MRC, ABC Interactive,
`and the ARF also participated in the project, with the MRC initially designing the project approach
`and acting as facilitator of many of the project discussions.
`The project had two important phases:
`1.
`Identification and Categorization of measurement methods used by the project participants,
`and
`2. Analysis of the numeric differences in counts arising from certain measurement options for
`Ad Impressions, as well as the numeric differences between client and server-initiated
`counting of Ad Impressions.
`Information gathered in both phases was used to create the measurement metric definitions and
`other guidelines contained herein.
`The IAB, MRC and ARF, in subsequent phases of this project, plan to further refine the counting
`metrics beyond Ad Impressions – i.e., Clicks, Page Impressions, Unique Visitors and Browsers,
`and other emerging media delivery vehicles – which are included in Appendix B of this document.
`Additionally, when the follow-up phases of this project are executed (for example, the next phase
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`“Clicks” will be initiated later in 2004), the project participants plan to re-assess the applicability of
`the ad-impression guidance contained herein and make such modifications as new technology or
`methodology may dictate.
`
`Phase 1 – Establishment of Initial Guidelines and Metrics
`The IAB commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) to perform the testing and data gath-
`ering required by Phase 1 of the project, which included identifying common measurement met-
`rics, definitions and reporting practices, as well as highlighting areas of measurement diversity
`among the project participants. Additionally, PwC prepared a report (available to the IAB, MRC,
`ARF and project participants) that aggregated the findings, identified common trends and metrics
`and proposed an initial draft of a common set of industry definitions for several of the project met-
`rics.
`PwC’s report was used as a basis for later participant discussions and in deriving the definitions
`and guidelines contained herein. Ten Internet organizations were chosen by the IAB and requested
`to participate in the project as follows:
`• Three Ad Networks or Ad Serving Organizations
`• Four Destination Sites
`• Four Portal Sites
`The following organizations participated in the project: AOL, Avenue A, CNET Networks Inc., Walt
`Disney Internet Group, DoubleClick, Forbes.net, MSN, New York Times Digital, Terra Lycos and
`Yahoo!
`When combined, the participants’ ad revenues represent nearly two-thirds of total industry rev-
`enue.
`All of the participating organizations supplied information to PwC on their measurement criteria
`and practices and cooperated in necessary interviews and testing used as the basis for PwC’s
`report.
`PwC’s procedures included: (1) interviews with employees of participating organizations, (2)
`reviews of policies, definitions and procedures of each participating organization, (3) execution of
`scripted testing to assess the collection and reporting systems of the participating organizations,
`and (4) analyses of results for differences and for the purpose of suggesting consistent definitions.
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`Phase 2 – Refinement of Guidelines and Specific Ad Impression Counting Guideline
`Phase 2 of the project included data analysis and discussion between extensive groups of partici-
`pants including: (1) the Phase 1 team (now called the “Measurement Task Force” of the IAB), (2)
`additional ad-serving organizations, and (3) the MRC. The project team for phase 2 did not include
`ABC Interactive or PwC.
`Additionally, the Interactive Committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies was
`provided with updates and periodic status checks to assure that project directions and findings
`were consistent with the expectations of the buying marketplace.
`Certain analyses were performed by ImServices, which were used in the assessment of changes
`proposed to filtration guidelines.
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`Project Participants
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`International Ad Servers
`AdTech (Germany)
`ALLYES (China)
`Aufeminin (France)
`CheckM8 (US/UK/Israel)
`Cossette/Fjord Interactive (Canada)
`Falk AG (Germany)
`JNJ Interactive (Korea)
`Iprom (Slovenia)
`Predicta (Brazil)
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`Other Participants
`ABCE/IFABC (Europe)
`Advertising Research Foundation (U.S.)
`Amer. Assoc. of Ad Agencies (U.S.)
`Association of National Advertisers (U.S.)
`EACA (Europe)
`EIAA (Europe)
`ESOMAR (Europe)
`IAB Argentina
`IAB Europe
`IM Services (U.S.)
`Interactive Media Association (Brazil)
`Media Rating Council (U.S.)
`PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
`JIAA (Japan)
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`U.S. ( * = non-publisher)
`24/7 Real Media
`About.com
`Accipiter*
`Advertising.com
`AOL
`Atlas DMT*
`BlueStreak *
`CentrPort*
`CheckM8*
`CNET Networks
`Disney Internet Group
`DoubleClick*
`Fastclick
`Falk North America*
`Focus Interactive/Excite Network
`Forbes.com
`Google
`I/PRO*
`Klipmart*
`MSN
`NY Times Digital
`Overture
`Poindexter Systems*
`Red Sheriff*/Nielsen NetRatings
`Value Click
`Weather Channel Interactive
`Yahoo!
`Zedo.com*
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`Scope and Applicability
`These guidelines are intended to cover on-line browser or browser-equivalent based Internet activity.
`Wireless, off-line cached media and Interactive-based television were not addressed in these
`guidelines due to differences in infrastructure and/or delivery method. Additionally, newer extended
`metrics that are just beginning to be captured by media companies; such as “flash tracking,” or
`flash sites are not addressed in this document and will be addressed at a later time.
`This document is principally applicable to Internet media companies and ad-serving organizations
`and is intended as a guide to accepted practice, as developed by the IAB, MRC and ARF.
`Additionally, Internet planners and buyers can use this document to assist in determining the
`quality of measurements.
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`Contents
`
`This document contains the following sections:
`1. Measurement Definitions
`a. Ad Impressions
`2. Caching Guidelines
`3. Filtration Guidelines
`4. Auditing Guidelines
`a. General
`b. US Certification Recommendation
`5. General Reporting Parameters
`6. Disclosure Guidelines
`7. Conclusion and Contact Information
`Appendix A – Different but Valid Implementation Options for Ad-Impressions
`Appendix B – Initial Measurement Definitions Arising from Phase 1 of Project
`a. Clicks
`b. Visits
`c. “Unique” Measurements — Browsers, Visitors and Users
`d. Page Impressions
`Appendix C – Brief Explanation of U.S. Associations Involved in this Project
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`1. Measurement Definitions
`The following presents the guidance for “Ad Impression” counting resulting from Phase 2 of the
`Project, which is considered finalized:
`Ad Impression – A measurement of responses from an ad delivery system to an ad request from
`the user's browser, which is filtered from robotic activity and is recorded at a point as late as pos-
`sible in the process of delivery of the creative material to the user's browser — therefore closest to
`actual opportunity to see by the user (see specifics below).
`Two methods are used to deliver ad content to the user – server-initiated and client-initiated.
`Server initiated ad counting uses the site's web content server for making requests, formatting and
`re-directing content. Client-initiated ad counting relies on the user's browser to perform these
`activities (in this case the term “client” refers to an Internet user’s browser).
`This Guideline requires ad counting to use a client-initiated approach; server-initiated ad counting
`methods (the configuration in which ad impressions are counted at the same time the underlying
`page content is served) are not acceptable for counting ad impressions because they are the fur-
`thest away from the user actually seeing the ad.
`The following details are key components of the Guideline:
`1. A valid ad impression may only be counted when an ad counter receives and responds to
`an HTTP request for a tracking asset from a client. The count must happen after the initia-
`tion of retrieval of underlying page content. Permissible implementation techniques include
`(but are not limited to) HTTP requests generated by <IMG>, <IFRAME>, or <SCRIPT SRC>.
`For client-side ad serving, the ad content itself could be treated as the tracking asset and
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`the ad server itself could do the ad counting.
`2. The response by the ad counter includes but is not limited to:
`a. Delivery of a “beacon,” which may be defined as any piece of content designated as
`a tracking asset. Beacons will commonly be in the form of a 1x1 pixel image, but the
`Guideline does not apply any restrictions to the actual media-type or content-type
`employed by a beacon response.
`b. Delivery of a “302” redirect or html/javascript (which doubles as a tracking asset) to
`any location, and
`c. Delivery of ad content
`3. Measurement of any ad delivery may be accomplished by measuring the delivery of a
`tracking asset associated with the ad.
`4. The ad counter must employ standard headers on the response, in order to minimize the
`potential of caching. The standard headers will include the following:
`• Expiry
`• Cache-Control
`• Pragma
`See section 2 of this document entitled Caching Guidelines for further information.
`5. One tracking asset may register impressions for multiple ads that are in separate locations on
`the page; as long as reasonable precautions are taken to assure that all ads that are recorded in
`this fashion have loaded prior to the tracking asset being called (for example the count is made
`after loading of the final ad). This technique can be referred to as “compound tracking.” Use of
`compound tracking necessitates that the ad group can only be counted if reasonable assurance
`exists that all grouped ads load prior to counting, for example through placing the tracking asset
`at the end of the HTML string.
`As a recommendation, sites should ensure that every measured ad call is unique to the browser.
`There are many valid techniques available to do this, (including the generation of random strings
`directly by the server, or by using JavaScript statements to generate random values in beacon
`calls).
`
`Other Ad-Impression Considerations
`Robot filtration guidelines are presented later in this document. Appropriate filtration of robotic
`activity is critical to accurate measurement of ad impressions.
`Media companies and ad serving organizations should fully disclose their ad impression recording
`process to buyers and other users of the ad impression count data.
`
`2. Caching Guidelines
`Cache busting techniques are required for all sites and ad-serving organizations. The following
`techniques are acceptable:
`1. HTTP Header Controls
`2. Random Number assignment techniques to identify unique serving occurrences of
`pages/ads.
`Publishers and ad serving organizations should fully disclose their cache busting techniques to
`buyers and other users of their data.
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`3. Filtration Guidelines
`Filtration of site or ad-serving transactions to remove non-human activity is highly critical to accu-
`rate, consistent counting. Filtration guidelines consist of two approaches: (1) filtration based on
`specific identification of suspected non-human activity, and (2) activity-based filtration (sometimes
`referred to as “pattern analysis”). Each organization should employ both techniques in combina-
`tion. Organizations are encouraged to adopt the strongest possible filtration techniques.
`
`Minimum Requirements
`The following explains minimum filtration activity acceptable for compliance with this guideline:
`Specific Identification Approach:
`• Robot Instruction Files are used.
`• URL, user agent, and client browser information is used to exclude robots based on exact
`matches with a combination of two sources: (1) The IAB Industry Robot List and (2) a list of
`known Browser-Types published by the IAB. In the case of (1), matches are excluded from
`measurements. For item (2) matches are included in measurements. (Note that filtration
`occurring in third party activity audits is sufficient to meet this requirement.)
`• Disclose company-internal traffic on a disaggregated basis. If company-internal traffic is
`material to reported metrics and does not represent exposure to ads or content that is quali-
`tatively similar to non-internal users, remove this traffic. Additionally remove all robotic or
`non-human traffic arising from internal sources, for example IT personnel performing testing
`of web-pages. A universal or organizational identification string for all internal generated traf-
`fic or testing activity is recommended to facilitate assessment, disclosure or removal of this
`activity as necessary.
`Activity-based Filtration:
`• In addition to the specific identification technique described above, organizations are
`required to use some form of activity-based filtration to identify new robot-suspected activ-
`ity. Activity-based filtration identifies likely robot/spider activity in log-file data through the
`use of one or more analytical techniques. Specifically, organizations can analyze log files
`for:
`
`o Multiple sequential activities – a certain number of ads, clicks or pages over a speci-
`fied time period from one user,
`o Outlier activity – users with the highest levels of activity among all site visitors or with
`page/ad impressions roughly equal to the total pages on the site,
`o Interaction attributes – consistent intervals between clicks or page/ad impressions
`from a user
`o Other suspicious activity – users accessing the robot instruction file, not identifying
`themselves as robots. Each suspected robot/spider arising from this analysis
`requires follow-up to verify the assumption that its activity is non-human.
`Sites should apply all of these types of techniques, unless in the judgment of the auditor and man-
`agement (after running the techniques at least once to determine their impact), a specific tech-
`nique is not necessary for materially accurate reporting. If a sub-set of these techniques are used,
`this should be re-challenged periodically to assure the appropriateness of the approach.
`• Activity Based filtration must be applied on a periodic basis, with a minimum frequency of
`once per quarter. Additionally Activity Based filtration should be run on an exception basis
`in order to check questionable activity. In all cases Organizations must have defined proce-
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`dures surrounding the schedule and procedures for application of this filtering.
`The intent of activity-based filtration is to use analytics and judgment to identify likely non-human
`activity for deletion (filtration) while not discarding significant real visitor activity. Activity-based fil-
`tration is critical to provide an on-going “detective” internal control for identifying new types or
`sources of non-human activity.
`An organization should periodically monitor its pattern analysis decision rule(s) to assure measure-
`ments are protected from robot/spider inflationary activity with a minimal amount of lost real visitor
`activity. Additionally, publishers and ad serving organizations should fully disclose the significant
`components of their filtration process to buyers and other users of their data.
`
`4. Auditing Guidelines
`General – Third-party independent auditing is encouraged for all ad-serving applications used in
`the buying and selling process. This auditing is recommended to include both counting methods
`and processing/controls as follows:
`1. Counting Methods: Independent verification of activity for a defined period. Counting
`method procedures generally include a basic process review and risk analysis to under-
`stand the measurement methods, analytical review, transaction authentication, validation of
`filtration procedures and measurement recalculations. Activity audits can be executed at
`the campaign level, verifying the activity associated with a specific ad creative being deliv-
`ered for performance measurement purposes.
`2. Processes/Controls: Examination of the internal controls surrounding the ad delivery,
`recording and measurement process. Process auditing includes examination of the ade-
`quacy of site or ad-server applied filtration techniques.
`Although audit reports can be issued as infrequently as once per year, some audit testing should
`extend to more than one period during the year to assure internal controls are maintained. Audit
`reports should clearly state the periods covered by the underlying audit testing and the period
`covered by the resulting certification.
`US Certification Recommendation – All ad-serving applications used in the buying and selling
`process are recommended to be certified as compliant with these guidelines at minimum annually.
`This recommendation is strongly supported by the AAAA and other members of the buying com-
`munity, for consideration of measurements as “currency.” Currently this certification recommenda-
`tion is for ad-impressions only, since this counting guideline is finalized through phase 2 of the
`project.
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`Special Auditing Guidance for Outsourced Ad-Serving Software
`Ad serving organizations that market ad-serving/delivery software to publishers for use on the
`publisher’s IT infrastructure (i.e., “outsourced”) should consider the following additional guidance:
`1. The standardized ad-serving software should be certified on a one-time basis at the ad-
`serving organization, and this certification is applied to each customer. This centralized cer-
`tification is required at minimum annually.
`2. Each customer’s infrastructure (and any modifications that customer has made to the ad-
`serving software, if any) should be individually audited to assure continued functioning of
`the software and the presence of appropriate internal controls. Processes performed in the
`centralized certification applicable to the outsourced software are generally not re-per-
`formed. The assessment of customer internal controls (and modifications made to out-
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`sourced software, if any) is also recommended to be at minimum an annual procedure.
`These certification procedures are only necessary for outsource clients who wish to present their
`measurements for use by buyers.
`
`Special Auditing Guidance for Advertising Agencies or Other Buying Organizations
`If buying organizations modify or otherwise manipulate measurements from certified publishers or
`ad-servers after receipt, auditing of these activities should be considered.
`There are, in addition to MRC and its congressional supported certification process for the broad-
`cast industry, a number of other certifiers and types and levels of certification are available to ad
`serving organizations.
`
`5. General Reporting Parameters
`In order to provide for more standardization in Internet Measurement reporting, the following gen-
`eral reporting parameters are recommended:
`Day — 12:00 midnight to 12:00 midnight
`Time Zone – Full disclosure of the time-zone used to produce the measurement report is required.
`It is preferable, although not a current compliance requirement, for certified publishers or ad-
`servers to have the ability to produce audience reports in a consistent time-zone so buyers can
`assess activity across measurement organizations. For US-based reports it is recommended that
`reports be available on the basis of the Eastern time-zone, for non US-based reports this is recom-
`mended to be GMT.
`Week — Monday through Sunday
`Weekparts — M-F, M-Sun, Sat, Sun, Sat-Sun
`Month – Three reporting methods: (1) TV Broadcast month definition. In this definition, the Month
`begins on the Monday of the week containing the first full weekend of the month, (2) 4-week peri-
`ods – (13 per year) consistent with media planning for other media, or (3) a calendar month. For
`financial reporting purposes, a month is defined as a calendar month.
`Additional Recommendation: Dayparts – Internet usage patterns need further analysis to determine
`effective and logical reporting day parts. We encourage standardization of this measurement
`parameter.
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`6. Disclosure Guidance
`An organization’s methodology for accumulating Internet measurements should be fully described
`to users of the data.
`Specifically, the nature of Internet measurements, methods of sampling used (if applicable), data
`collection methods employed, data editing procedures or other types of data adjustment or pro-
`jection, calculation explanations, reporting standards (if applicable), reliability of results (if applica-
`ble) and limitations of the data should be included in the disclosure.
`The following presents examples of the types of information disclosed.
`Nature of Internet Measurements
`• Name of Property, Domain, Site, Included in the Measurement
`• Name of Measurement Report
`• Type of Measurements Reported
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`o Time Periods Included
`o Days Included
`o Basis for Measurement
`o Geographic Areas
`o Significant Sub-Groupings of Data
`• Formats of Reported Data
`• Special Promotions Impacting Measurements
`• Nature of Auditing Applied and Directions to Access to Audit Report
`• Sampling/Projections Used
`o Sampling Methods Used for Browsers not Accepting Cookies or Browsers with New
`Cookies
`o Explanation of Projection Methods
`Data Collection Methods Employed
`• Method of Data Collection
`o Logging Method
`o Logging Frequency
`o Logging Capture Point
`• Types of Data Collected
`o Contents of Log Files
`o Cookie Types
`• Contacts with Users (if applicable)
`• Research on Accuracy of Basic Data
`o Cookie Participation Percentages
`o Latency Estimates
`• Rate of Response (if applicable)
`Editing or Data Adjustment Procedures
`• Checking Records for Completeness
`• Consistency Checks
`• Accuracy Checks
`• Rules for Handling Inconsistencies
`• Circumstances for Discarding Data
`• Handling of Partial Data Records
`o Ascription Procedures
`Computation of Reported Results
`• Description of How Estimates are Calculated
`o Illustrations are desirable
`• Weighting Techniques (if applicable)
`• Verification or Quality Control Checks in Data Processing Operations
`• Pre-Release Quality Controls
`• Reprocessing or Error Correction Rules
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`Reporting Standards (if applicable)
`• Requirements for Inclusion in Reports, Based on Minimum Activity Levels
`Reliability of Results
`• Sampling Error (if applicable)
`Limitations on Data Use
`• Non-sampling Error
`• Errors or Unusual Conditions Noted in Reporting Period
`• Limitations of Measurement, such as Caching, Multiple Users per Browser, Internet latency
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`7. Conclusion and Contact Information
`This document represents the combined effort of the IAB (with PWC and ABCi in Phase 1), the
`project participants, MRC and ARF to bring consistency and increased accuracy to Internet meas-
`urements. We encourage adoption of these guidelines by all organizations that measure Internet
`activity and wish to have their measurements included for consideration by buyers.
`For further information or questions please contact the following individuals:
`
`Media Rating Council:
`George Ivie
`Executive Director
`370 Lexington Ave., Suite 902
`New York, NY 10017
`(212) 972-0300
`givie@mindspring.com
`
`Interactive Advertising Bureau:
`Greg Stuart
`President & CEO
`200 Park Avenue South, Suite 501
`New York, NY 10003
`212-949-9033
`greg@iab.net
`
`Advertising Research Foundation:
`Bob Barocci
`President
`641 Lexington Avenue
`New York, NY 10022
`212-751-5656
`bb@thearf.org
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`APPENDIX A
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`APPENDIX B
`Initial Measurement Definitions Arising from Phase 1 of Project
`The following measurement definitions, resulting from Phase 1 of the Project, are considered “ini-
`tial” guidance and are presented for consideration by interested organizations. The IAB, MRC, ARF
`and the Measurement Task Force will be finalizing these definitions in later phases of the Project.
`Click – There are three types of user reactions to Internet content or advertising – click-through, in-
`unit click and mouse-over. All of these reactions are generally referred to as “clicks.” A click-
`through is the measurement of a user-initiated action of clicking on an ad element, causing a redi-
`rect to another web location. Click-throughs are tracked and reported at the ad server, and gener-
`ally include the use of a 302 redirect. This measurement is filtered for robotic activity.
`In-unit clicks and mouse-overs (mouse-overs are a form of ad interaction), result in server log
`events and new content being served and are generally measured using 302s, however they may
`not necessarily include a redirect to another web location. Certain in-unit clicks and mouse-overs
`may be recorded in a batch mode and reported on a delayed basis. Organizations using a batch
`processing method should have proper controls over establishing cut-off of measurement periods.
`Clicks can be reported in total, however significant types of clicks should be presented with disag-
`gregated detail. If, due to ad-counting software limitations, an organization cannot report the dis-
`aggregated detail of click-types, only click-throughs should be reported.
`Robot filtration guidelines are presented later in this document. Appropriate filtration of robotic
`activity is critical to accurate measurement of clicks. Media companies and ad serving organiza-
`tions should fully disclose their click recording process to buyers and other users of the click count
`data.
`It is important to note that clicks are not equivalent to web-site referrals measured at the destina-
`tion site. If an organization complies with the guidelines specified herein, there will still be meas-
`urement differences between originating-server measurement and the destination site (advertiser).
`The use of 302 redirects helps to mitigate this difference because of its easy and objective quan-
`tification however differences will remain from measurements taken at the destination site because
`of various issues such as latency, user aborts, etc. The subject of the magnitude of this difference
`may be a subject for future phases of this project.
`Additionally, this guideline does not cover measurement specifics of post-click activity, which also
`may be a subject of future phases of this project.
`Visit – One or more text and/or graphics downloads from a site qualifying as at least one page,
`without 30 consecutive minutes of inactivity, which can be reasonably attributed to a single brows-
`er for a single session. A browser must “pull” text or graphics content to be considered a visit.
`This measurement is filtered for robotic activity prior to reporting and is determined using one of
`two acceptable methods (presented in preferred order):
`1. Unique Registration: When access to a site is restricted solely to registered visitors (visitors
`who have completed a survey on the first visit to identify themselves and supply a user-id
`and password on subsequent visits), that site can determine visits using instances of
`unique registered visitors.
`2. Unique Cookie with a Heuristic: The site’s web server can store a small piece of information
`with a browser that uniquely identifies that browser. For browsers that accept cookies, vis-
`its can be approximated using the page and/or graphics downloads identifiable to a
`unique-cookie (recognizing that this is not perfect because it merely measures unique
`“browsers”). For browsers that do not accept a cookie, a heuristic (decision rule) can be
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`U.S. Version
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`15
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`AHBLT-2006.015
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`Interactive Audience Measurement and Advertising
`Campaign Reporting and Audit Guidelines
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`used to count visits using a unique IP address and user agent string, which would be
`added to the cookie-based counts. For these cases, using the full user agent string is rec-
`ommended.
`The unique cookie should be identified as unique using a technique such as a cookie number,
`additionally sites with multiple domains or properties should consider special sharing rules for
`cookie information to increase the accuracy and provide for greater leveraging of unique cookies.
`Permanent cookies should be established with a lengthy expiration time, meant to approximate the
`useful life (at minimum) of the browser technology.
`Registration, cookies and unique IP/User Agent String measurement methods can be used in com-
`bination. Certain organizations rely on unique IP address and user agent string with a heuristic as a
`sole measurement technique for visits. This method should not be used solely because of inherent
`inaccuracies arising from dynamic IP addressing which distorts these measures significantly.
`Robot filtration guidelines are presented later in this document. Appropriate filtration of robotic
`activity is critical to accurate measurement of Visits Media companies and ad serv