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I used to work on a high profile old media site, and based on my experience there, I believe that the motivation is that it's easier to game ad metrics with stu

I used to work on a high profile old media site, and based on my experience there, I believe that the motivation is that it's easier to game ad metrics with stupid gimmicks this way. Approximately at the time I had lost hope and was looking for an exit, they were working on a new photo gallery that would count each "next" click as a new page impression. In short, it allows you to muddy the water around what exactly constitutes an "impression."

mrkurt 16y ago
To be fair, an "impression" isn't really a great metric on a page that people sit on for >1 minute. The guidelines we worked under at my previous job basically said "if a user action changes a substantial portion of the page, it qualifies as an impression". It seemed pretty fair to me at the time. Advertisers (especially with rich media) get ridiculous interaction metrics from their creative, they know what people are doing with their ads. Lots of them are happy if an ad sticks on a page for half a minute and is then replaced.