Nov 24, 2008

Business - afaqs! ranked World's largest advertising,media & marketing website

And here’s another feat for India. India’s top advertising, media and marketing website, afaqs.com, has been certified as the world’s largest website in its chosen space. ABC Electronic certified the afaqs! traffic at 2.67 million page impressions in a month, which has the website leaving behind previous world leaders adage.com from the US and brandrepublic.com of the UK.

afaqs!’s certified page views have grown by over 35 per cent since 2007.

Commenting on this development, Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder and director, afaqs!, said, “Three years ago, when we got our first ABC certification, we realised that we were the world’s No. 2 advertising, media and marketing site. Since then we have been determined to get on top of our world. This afaqs! milestone is all the more remarkable when we consider that the western websites operate in developed markets, are far better funded and have been in this space since decades.”


In comparison, afaqs! was started in a New Delhi garage nine years ago by three people.

adage.com is the website presence of Advertising Age, the well-established magazine from Crain Communications. Brandrepublic.com is the online home of several titles from Haymarket: Campaign, Marketing, Media Week, Revolution and Marketing Direct.

“Not only are we determined to keep growing, this encourages afaqs! to explore opportunities outside India,” Khandekar remarked.

Launched in September 1999 as agencyfaqs!, the objective of the website was to make easier the lives of professionals in the fields of advertising, media and marketing. The website was rechristened afaqs! in May, 2008 to reflect the changing dynamics of marketing communications.

Richard Foan, managing director, ABC Electronic, said in a press statement, “afaqs! is demonstrating a clear commitment to best practice by becoming the first ever site in India to achieve independent certification of its traffic to global industry agreed standards. By committing to the ABC Electronic verification, afaqs! is setting a positive example to other sites in the market that third party audited data is key in building a robust currency for the buying and selling of online media space.”

“afaqs! should be commended for being the first site in India to evoke this trust with its advertisers and stakeholders,” adds Foan.

The ABC Electronic certificate was issued to afaqs! after its traffic figures during July 2008 were independently verified to industry-agreed standards as set by JICWEBS (Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards in the UK and Ireland).

afaqs! went to ABC Electronic, UK, because as of now, India has had no facility to provide an online digital audit certification to websites.

1 comment:

Anu said...

Hello,
Great Podcast! I most certainly wouldn't give up :)