Each company's score on the Investor Awareness Index results from the combined weighting of various investor awareness attributes. 

Each attribute has been ranked by how integral it is in either indicating or generating broad awareness.  For example, the number of institutional holders is an indicator of how broad the awareness is, while appearing at investment conferences or getting media coverage are generators of awareness. 

Some of the attributes that help comprise each company's score and/or that can help create awareness in the investment community include

• Employment of an Investor Relations representative or outside agency whose responsibility is to interact with the investment community 
• Amount of sell-side analyst coverage
• Amount of media coverage
• Amount of institutional ownership
• Utilization of Web 2.0 initiatives that enhance company content distribution, such as RSS, blogs, social bookmarking, and podcasts
• Employment of a Public Relations or Corporate Communications Officer or outside agency whose responsibility is to perform PR activities
• Quality and quantity of inbound links to company's Website
• Participation in financial/investor conferences
• Availability and quality of investor relations information on company's Website, and
• Optimization of company's Website, among others. 

The weight assigned to each component varies and is part of the proprietary formula for calculating scores on the Investor Awareness Index.

The Investor Awareness Index Approach to Scoring and Verifying Answers

The Investor Awareness Index employs an independent research approach and utilizes multiple sources to verify answers and score companies.

Our work is based on the following ethics:

• Cooperation with companies, vendors, and service providers,
• Highest quality standard of research and analysis,
• Strict respect of business principles, and
• Independent judgment.