• October 10, 2008

Nielsen Online has formed a joint venture with the parent of ChinaRank, which publishes Web site rankings in China, to track Internet use in the country.

The new venture, CR-Nielsen, will be the first company to provide standard Internet measures such as traffic figures in China.

"With more than 250 million Internet users, China represents a significant opportunity for our clients, and there has been a loud call to support this expanding market with high-quality, independent online measurement services," said Itzhak Fisher, executive chairman of Nielsen Online, in a statement.

In its initial release of data, the Chinese search engine was the top-ranked site with 171 million unique visitors during the second week of September. The Chinese version of Google ranked fourth, with 81 million visitors.

During the Beijing Olympics, ChinaRank reported 65.8 million visitors to Olympics-related content online.--Mark Walsh