The new measurement approach, using a mix of panel-based and census measurement, promises publishers a better understanding of how many people visit their site from all locations, including mobile – not just the home and work traffic that previous reporting was limited to.

James Smythe (pictured), general manager of UKOM, the industry-backed online audience measurement company, said: “Nielsen’s hybrid method boosts every publisher with usage that’s been missing from the traditional panel approach.” The NetView panel remains the core of the measurement, but panel data is now combined with census usage data from selected publishers. This is used to predict ‘all-location’ website audiences for all websites, UKOM said.

Nielsen has held the UKOM measurement contract since 2009. Last month it was announced that ComScore would take over the contract from 2013, bringing with it its own hybrid solution.