Using Google Analytics to help with site valuations

I'm just wondering if anybody else thinks that perhaps in a short period of time, Google Analytics numbers will be used as a determining factor in site valuation. I say this because site visits can be determined reliably, while site visitors simply cannot be easily gauged.

When people try to estimate the value of a site, it appears that the biggest factor is unique visitors per month. However, there is no way to get a very reliable figure for this. IPro estimates that we have 5x the number of unique monthly visitors than what Media Metrix estimates. I definitely feel that the IPro number is too high for our site, but the Media Metrix number is definitely way too low. (We're a student site and Media Metrix notoriously undercounts students.)

My point is that even though Google Analytics doesn't even try to estimate visitors, they are able to give a very firm number for site visits because the actual site pages are coded and therefore accurately tracked and counted. Even though people would prefer to know site visitors rather than site visits, isn't the fact that site visits can be tracked accurately while site visitors can not be tracked accurately a reason that Google Analytics numbers should be a primary focus in the future when estimating a site's value?

Jeff Edelman
The Student Center
http://www.student.com

 

it helps in many ways
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