Company History

Hitwise, an Experian company was founded in February 1997 as a solution to a new problem – only the large websites, such as Yahoo!, MSN and Amazon were being monitored comparatively and data on websites with a more limited reach, such as Colgate, Nissan, and L’Oreal – was not available.

The reason for this is that the methodology used by the existing online measurement companies was not cost effective and so could not effectively scale to measure a medium like the Internet. These companies simply applied the television ratings methodology (software sitting in a person’s home) to the Internet. As a result, only a relatively small number of people (10,000 to 50,000) people were able to be monitored, which meant only a relatively small number of websites (top 1000) were reported in the rankings.

Instead, Hitwise applied a new measurement method to the new medium, realizing that by working with ISP networks, (instead of recruiting individual panel members) it would be possible to anonymously monitor more people, and therefore report on more websites. Using this new method Hitwise could cost effectively and anonymously monitor millions of Internet users, and therefore report on hundreds of thousands of websites, in addition to the top few.

As a result, while many other measurement companies have relatively small client bases, Hitwise data is relevant to over 1 million online businesses.

Company Milestones

1997

Company founded by Adrian Giles and Andrew Barlow as Australasia’s first Search marketing and consulting company (called Sinewave Interactive).
R&D begins into popularity based search engine (Top100.com.au) and Hitwise ranking service.

1999

Top100 Search Engine launched as world’s first popularity based search engine using ISP data.

2000

Hitwise competitive intelligence service is launched, with ranking, profile and charting features only. Subscriptions to the service sold directly over the Internet.

2001

Launched Clickstream counting technology
Launch of Hitwise New Zealand
Launch of Hitwise Hong Kong
Launch of Hitwise UK
Launch of Hitwise Singapore

2002

Awarded 5^th fastest growing technology company in Australia by Deloittes
Awarded 10^th fastest growing technology company in Asia by Deloittes
Acquired IP assets of Plurimus Corporation in USA
Launched Hitwise Demographics, Benchmark Reports and Media Alerts
Formed alliance with Media Monitors to license media alerts technology
Grew sample size to 13M Internet users and 200,000 websites

2003

Launch of Hitwise US
Awarded Telstra Small Business of the Year Finalists
Adrian Giles named Ernst & Young, Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist
Launched Hitwise Lifestyle and Search Terms data
Grew sample size to 25M Internet users and 500,000 websites measured
Launched Hitwise Search Intelligence™
Hitwise Lifestyle developed and launched
Established strategic partnerships with Claritas and Experian

2004

Telstra Small Business of the Year Finalists
Awarded 6th fastest growing technology company by Deloittes
American Business Awards Finalist

2005

Named Victorian Export Awards Finalists
Launched Keyword Intelligence service

2006

Awarded Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 50 - New York, 2006
Launched Hitwise Conversions Technology
Grew database to 800,000 websites measured
Purchased HitDynamics marketing management platform

2007

Grew database to 1 million websites measured
Announcement of Experian’s acquisition of Hitwise
Launched Hitwise Dashboards Interface