Understanding Site Statistics
DECEMBER 2002
Different
software packages offer different types of site statistics. Some
are nearly worthless while others give you a good overview of
your site's traffic.
HITS
Let
me first clear up a common misconception - hits. Hits became a
common misnomer among site owners when statistics first became
available. Unfortunately, hits was interpreted incorrectly. A
page with 2 graphics on it will produce 3 "hits" when
viewed. Why? Because there were three calls to the server - send
the HTML file, send the first picture, send the second picture.
Pages with more graphics on them will produce more "hits."
Framesets will produce even more 'hits" as the document for
each of the frame windows is loaded.
SESSIONS
Some of the better software packages will separate hits from "sessions" or "visits."
A session begins when a visitor enters your site and ends when
they leave. Thus a "session" is one visitor. Another
session could be the visitor returning, however, so unless your
software package tracks "unique visitors" or "unique
sessions" sessions do not necessarily reflect different visitors.
PAGE VIEW
HITS
Page view hits is different than just "hits." A page
view hit counts the page and all of its elements as one hit. While
this is more accurate that just "hits", it is still
not as accurate as sessions for counting visitors since one visitor
could return to a page multiple times within a session.
REFERRERS
Referrers document how a visitor got to your site. Did they come
from a search engine? Did they come from an online directory or
banner ad? You'll probably notice that many of your referrers
came from your own web site. How could this be? More than likely
these are previous visitors who have bookmarked a specific page
of your site.
You should
see a good number of referrers coming from search engines, if
you've designed your site correctly and submitted it to the major
search engines. So, what's a "good" number of search
engine referrers? Internet marketing associations have determined
that the average site gets 6% of its traffic from search engines.
This is because a visitor is likely to visit your site via a search
query only once. If your site is relevant, they would most likely
bookmark it for future reference. Thus that 6% figure indicates
"new" visitors to your site. If your site is receiving
search engine traffic that accounts for 6% or better of your total
visitors - you're right on track. (Newer sites may receive higher
percentages as nearly everyone that comes to the site is a first
time visitor.)
GEOGRAPHICAL
STATS
Many software packages will tell you which state and/or country
your site visitors are coming from. There is a caveat here: the
geographical location of a site visitor may be based on their Internet
Provider. Thus all AOL users, regardless of where they actually
reside, show up as coming from Virginia - the state where AOL
is registered. Earthlink subscribers will register as coming from
California, I have Comcast and register as coming from
Massachusetts. While this doesn't make the stats totally useless,
you should not dwell too hard on these numbers. Their accuracy
is suspect.
BROWSERS
& OPERATING SYSTEMS
This is a section that anyone who designs web sites needs to study.
It's important to understand the operating system and browsers
your visitors are using to view your site in order to make sure
that they can experience your site the way you intended them to.
Certain industries may find that the Mac operating system is the
most popular one used when visiting their site, while others may
rarely see a Mac owner visit their site. Why does it make a difference?
Different browsers, different operating systems, and different
monitors will all display your site just a little bit different.
In some cases, the difference may be so extreme that a high percentage
of your visitors may not even be able to view your site properly.
If you've never viewed your site on a Macintosh computer, you
may be surprised at just how different it looks.
KEYWORDS
A good stat program should be able to provide you with some keywords
used at various search engines to find your site. While they can't
capture every keyword, and they sometimes break phrases into individual
words, this does give you an idea of how your site is being found.
Are these the appropriate keywords for your site? Are they unique
enough to send you qualified visitors or are you getting tons
of traffic from people looking for something totally different?
For example, if your site is a financial site selling investment
CD's, are your visitors coming looking to invest or are they looking
for music? This section should give you an idea and help you to
fine tune your site's copy.
WHERE DO
I YOU GET STATS?
Many hosting companies offer statistics as part of their package,
but some have such poor statistics that you can't make heads or
tails of what's happening. In cases like that, you will need to
either move your site to a hosting company that offers a better
statistics program or purchase third-party stats. I like the stats
you can purchase at sitetracker.com.
They are very comprehensive and easy to understand. They provide
you with a bit of code that you can copy and paste into each page
of your site and, viola! you have stats. If you put the code just
before the closing body tag, it will not slow down the load time
of your pages.
Another good programthat works similar to SiteTracker but is totally free is Google Analytics. You can sign up for analytics, put some coding on each of your pages and get very nice stats.
Web-Kare's
hosting packages includes site statistics at no
additional cost. We find these statistics to be comprehensive
and easy to understand. They offer all of the information mentioned
in this article and more and, while Web-Kare includes your stats in your monthly marketing reports, you can also access them online
at any time.
