STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter FAQ

• What do the rankings mean?
• How are these ratings calculated?
• Are STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter based on polls?
• Could someone "rig" the ratings by visiting an IMDb page repeatedly?
• How do STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter compare with other rankings?
• Why does my STARmeter/MOVIEmeter rank change so much from one week to another?

What do the rankings mean?

STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter are rankings of every person, title and company in IMDb and only available on IMDbPro. STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter provide industry professionals with insights into the popularity of film and television productions as well as the people and companies that make them. To learn more about our rankings, start your IMDbPro 30-day free trial.

Plain and simple, they represent what people are interested in, based not on small statistical samplings, but on the actual behavior of millions of IMDb users. Unlike the AFI 100 or Academy Awards, high rankings on STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter do not necessarily mean that something is "good." They do mean that there is a high level of public awareness and/or interest in the title, person or company.

How are these ratings calculated?

IMDbPro uses proprietary algorithms that take into account several measures of popularity for people, titles and companies. The primary measure is who and what people are looking at on IMDb.

The rankings are updated on a weekly basis, typically by the end of Monday.

Are STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter based on polls?

Sort of, users vote through their actions, every time someone visits an IMDb page about one of the over 11 million titles and over 8.7 million people in the database, we record that "pageview". It is the sum total of these pageviews that form the foundation of the STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter rankings.

Could someone "rig" the ratings by visiting an IMDb page repeatedly?

No, IMDb has more than 200 million monthly visitors. The STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter rankings are based on a cumulative total of more than 3 billion pageviews per month. Furthermore, we have designed the ranking algorithm so that the actions of one user (or small group of users) has a limited impact; we monitor STARmeter rankings for any possible fraudulent traffic generation, and the algorithm is periodically improved to detect and neutralize any attempts to 'stuff the ballot'.

How do STARmeter, MOVIEmeter, and COMPANYmeter compare with other rankings?

Some ranking systems are based on the opinion of one "expert" or a selected group of "experts". Others use statistical samplings of a few hundred or a few thousand people, offering them a controlled set of choices, and ranking only within that set.

We, on the other hand, offer a nearly unlimited set of choices with over 11 million titles and over 8.7 million people to choose from, and base our rankings on the behavior of a sampling group of more than 200 million monthly visitors in a real-world environment.

Why does my STARmeter/MOVIEmeter rank change so much from one week to another?

Fluctuations in STARmeter and MOVIEmeter values are normally more evident in people or films with lower rankings. STARmeter rankings are based on several statistical indicators,including the frequency and number of people who access a person's page or credits on IMDb. MOVIEmeter works in the same way, but ranks titles instead of people.

As is often the case when statistical calculations are performed on such a large sample of data, even small variations in popularity may produce significant changes in rank.

When an individual is very popular, the average interest of users over time remains fairly constant; with less popular names, it's more common to have sudden and sharp increases or decreases in the number of people who visit their page or see their credits, which explains the higher variance in the STARMeter ranking over time.

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