Is search the answer to the PR measurement debate?

In a post on the Spectrum blog, Westaby sets out the reasons why he thinks search is the ideal metric for PR professionals to refer to.

Speaking to Research, Westaby said that advertising value equivalents (AVEs), which have traditionally been used to gauge PR effectiveness, are “a farce”, while tools like Google Trends offer a quick, free and consistent way of finding out what media people are really interested in.

“There will inevitably be people who say search ratings are open to abuse, but frankly search engines are pretty sophisticated,” he said. “Even if it is abused occasionally, AVEs are 100% abused. Everybody accepts that.”

You can read our full interview with Mark Westaby here.