You might be asking yourself why using page views as a standard metric in the interactive industry is a problem now. After all, we've had dynamically-generated content for years and no one seems to have made a stink about it until recently. While it's true that there's been a problem for years, you've been reading about it a lot more recently because web measurement methodology has been under the microscope as of late.

Complaints by web publishers about the validity of data provided by comScore MediaMetrix and Nielsen//NetRatings has prompted methodology audits of both firms by both the Media Ratings Council and the Interactive Advertising Bureau. As a result, stakeholders are publishing their opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the methodologies used to gather comparative data. Among those weaknesses is the reliance on page view data as a basic metric.

While this controversy is brewing, pundits are taking note of the increased use of technology that allows for dynamic updating of web content. Adobe's Flash player and authoring tools have been with us for years, and it seems with each passing year more publishers and agencies increase their reliance on them. Publishers are also increasingly using AJAX technology to provide updates to content. Both Flash and AJAX can significantly wreak havoc with the notion that one page view equals one request for content.

AJAX represents a blending of technological approaches. The term itself is an acronym for Asynchronous Javascript and XML and is used to refer to web applications that can independently exchange data with a web server so that dynamic updates don't require a user to refresh the page on which the application resides. While this increases usability and functionality, it also cuts down on the number of page views necessary for users to get information they're looking for.

The combination of increased scrutiny of web measurement methodology and the proliferation of new technologies has brought the page view problem to the forefront, and there is no shortage of ideas about how to fix it.