H&H Webranking 2009 starts now!

Monday, June 15, 2009

This week the ranking of companies begins for the 13^th annual H&H Webranking. The 2009 protocol is established and you can read more about this year’s main topics in the article “A sneak preview of our protocol” on H&H Webranking's website. 

Introducing the FT European 500

In addition to the new protocol we have another scoop for 2009. Our main benchmark listing has traditionally been of the FT European 150. This list, as the name implies, is created by Financial Times and consists of the 150 largest companies in Europe, measured by market capitalisation and regardless of country. 

Usually the highest scoring companies have been represented on this list but since we have around 700 companies included in the survey (national lists for many countries go beyond the Europe 150) some good websites have not received enough attention. There can only be one winner in Europe and we want to be sure that as many companies as possible can compete for this title. Therefore we will use the larger FT European 500 list instead. This list was released by Financial Times 29^th May this year.

In the list below you can see how the FT European 500 is divided into individual countries. Not surprisingly UK, France and Germany are the most represented countries with a combined 45 per cent share of the list. In some countries we do additional rankings and the “Extra” column gives the exact number of companies. We will still continue to release the results country by country.

"By broadening the survey we strengthen our position as a pan-European survey and can offer even more benchmarking opportunities, trends and Best Practice examples for our customers. In recent years we have seen ambitious corporate website projects not getting their deserved attention only because they aren’t large enough to be included on the FT 150 list. Now we will have more room for honouring these companies as well. We will also get a better picture of the overall online communication atmosphere in Europe as a whole”, says Marcus Eriksson, Head of H&H Webranking.

Since 2006 we have also conducted Eastern Markets rankings that have focused mainly on Russia and Turkey. Since many of these companies are included in the FT Euro 500 and we will therefore no longer do a special Eastern Markets ranking. Instead we will integrate theses countries into the ordinary European rankings. Many of these companies view themselves as international and prefer to be benchmarked against the rest of Europe than within their own countries. They have for a long time looked to the west for inspiration and now they will be compared on an equal footing. At the same time this also gives an opportunity for European companies to keep an eye on their Eastern competitors.

More information:
Link to the FT European 500 list

Link to H&H Webranking