Web Statistics: How to Read Them

Be sure to read part one of this article, "Web Statistics: Why You Need Them."

Web Traffic Terms Explained

Log File

A file kept by your website's server that lists every request made to the server. Depending on your web host, this log tracking may or may not be turned on. The raw log files are virtually impossible for people to read and interpret, so it's necessary to use a specialized software program to display the log files.

Hit or Page Hit

Any item (file) served up by the web server on request. When a visitor views a web page that contains five images, six hits are recorded—one for the web page and one for each image. Hits will also include certain coding elements such as javascript and CSS. Because the number of items recorded can't be directly correlated meaningfully, hits are worthless for website traffic-tracking purposes.

File

Any named item of data kept on your server. Standard file types include gif and jpg (images); js (javascript); html (static web page); css (Cascading Style Sheet); asp (active server page); and php (dynamic PHP script). Each of these files called up by a site visitor (included in a web page) will be recorded as a separate hit.

Page View

A web page viewed by a visitor. This page view directly relates to your individual web pages (home, about us, services, etc.). Tracking software that provides you with page popularity will give you this important information.

Unique Visitor

How many "individual" visitors come to your website in a predefined period of time. This is one of your most valuable traffic numbers—though not completely accurate. This is because visitors are tracked by their static IP addresses, so, in general, one computer equals one visitor. But some ISPs (such as AOL) maintain a group of IP addresses so that the same person may use multiple IP addresses on different visits. On the other hand, many businesses share a single IP address that they provide to their employees. The time measurement is set by your tracking software. The overall trend of the numbers is important—upwards—not necessarily the exactness.

Bandwidth

The amount of data transmitted in a period of time. Measured in KB (kilobytes) or MB (megabytes). Depending on your web host and volume of traffic, you may be charged surcharges for overages on your bandwidth usage.

Robots / Spiders / Agents

An automatically run program that feeds web pages to search engines. These programs "crawl" websites through links on the web pages. In order to be found in search engines, it's important not to use technologies that block these programs, such as Flash, or frames. Your report should show you which ones have been through your site and when they last visited. Their visits should not be counted in your main traffic results.

Visits Duration

How long visitors stay on your site. The visits duration information can be misleading. If visitors are staying a long time on your site, is it because they can't find what they are looking for, or did they just leave your page up and go to lunch? This information should be evaluated with consideration to page popularity and entrance/exit page information. If you've recently redesigned your site, your visits duration may go up as visitors reacquaint themselves with your site. You do want site "stickiness," but you don't want visitors to be lost.

Top Pages / Page Popularity

Provides information about which pages on your site are the most popular, and which are the least. Generally, the most popular page is your home page, but not always. Before "booting" less popular pages, see if you can improve them for your audience.

Entrance Pages / Exit Pages

Tracks where visitors come into your site, and where they leave. You may want to put special offers or new visitor information on your top entry pages. Alternatively, you may want to modify your exit pages to be more compelling or to make a final appeal. You can also see if visitors are coming to view specific information (an article or offer) and not going anywhere else.

Operating Systems / Browsers (User Agents)

Which computer platforms (operating systems: Macintosh, UNIX-based, Windows) are the visitors using when they come to your site? Which browsers (IE, Firefox, Mozilla, etc.) are they using to view your site? If your site is built properly, it shouldn't matter what they use.

Search Keywords/Phrases / Search Strings

The words that users type into a search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and then click on to get to your site. Some of these may surprise you, so you might consider optimizing for phrases you hadn't previously considered. Which keyphrases are used is more useful information than which keywords.

Connect To/From / Referrers

The links visitors have used to access your site. Most of these will be internal (links within your own site moving from page to page). The external links will be the important ones. You may want to check on these by copying and pasting the links into your browser to see how your site is referenced on the referring pages.

HTTP Status Codes

In general, it is okay to ignore these codes because they report errors that are encountered by either visitors or spiders. Your web developer should be able to review them to see if there are any site errors that need to be fixed. However, if there are a number of "404 Document Not Found" errors, you should be sure you have a custom error page for your visitors.

Now that you understand why you need web statistics, and you know how to read them, take some time to review your site's stats and determine where you can make website improvements.

About Cool Plum Design

Cool Plum Design is a full-service web design business. We work with clients throughout the United States who need to represent their business online. We offer quality, customer-focused solutions integrating design, functionality, and content.

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