Site hits?

[Elizabeth Schott]

Master of your own domain? Hum, that has taken on a new meaning hasn't it?

Okay, I researched this with my site host and the following are for my reports based on Analog 5.22, which is the reporting language that is above for my site.

Here is the technical stuff, if you are interested. This information is authored by Stephen Turner at the following link:
5.22 analog information

The following information is regarding "hits" on your site (from link above):

3. What you can know. The only things you can know for certain are the number of requests made to your server, when they were made, which files were asked for, and which host asked you for them.

You can also know what people told you their browsers were, and what the referring pages were. You should be aware, though, that many browsers lie deliberately about what sort of browser they are, or even let users configure the browser name. Also, a few browsers send incorrect referrers, telling you the last page that the user was on even if they weren't referred by that page. And some people use "anonymizers" which deliberately send false browsers and referrers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. What you can't know.

i. You can't tell the identity of your readers. Unless you explicitly require users to provide a password, you don't know who connected or what their email addresses are.

ii. You can't tell how many visitors you've had. You can guess by looking at the number of distinct hosts that have requested things from you. Indeed this is what many programs mean when they report "visitors". But this is not always a good estimate for three reasons. First, if users get your pages from a local cache server, you will never know about it. Secondly, sometimes many users appear to connect from the same host: either users from the same company or ISP, or users using the same cache server. Finally, sometimes one user appears to connect from many different hosts. AOL now allocates users a different hostname for every request. So if your home page has 10 graphics on, and an AOL user visits it, most programs will count that as 11 different visitors!

iii. You can't tell how many visits you've had. Many programs, under pressure from advertisers' organisations, define a "visit" (or "session") as a sequence of requests from the same host until there is a half-hour gap. This is an unsound method for several reasons. First, it assumes that each host corresponds to a separate person and vice versa. This is simply not true in the real world, as discussed in the last paragraph. Secondly, it assumes that there is never a half-hour gap in a genuine visit. This is also untrue. I quite often follow a link out of a site, then step back in my browser and continue with the first site from where I left off. Should it really matter whether I do this 29 or 31 minutes later? Finally, to make the computation tractable, such programs also need to assume that your logfile is in chronological order: it isn't always, and analog will produce the same results however you jumble the lines up.

iv. Cookies don't solve these problems. Some sites try to count their visitors by using cookies. This reduces the errors. But it can't solve the problem unless you refuse to let people read your pages who can't or won't take a cookie. And you still have to assume that your visitors will use the same cookie for their next request.

v. You can't follow a person's path through your site. Even if you assume that each person corresponds one-to-one to a host, you don't know their path through your site. It's very common for people to go back to pages they've downloaded before. You never know about these subsequent visits to that page, because their browser has cached them. So you can't track their path through your site accurately.

vi. You often can't tell where they entered your site, or where they found out about you from. If they are using a cache server, they will often be able to retrieve your home page from their cache, but not all of the subsequent pages they want to read. Then the first page you know about them requesting will be one in the middle of their true visit.

vii. You can't tell how they left your site, or where they went next. They never tell you about their connection to another site, so there's no way for you to know about it.

viii. You can't tell how long people spent reading each page. Once again, you can't tell which pages they are reading between successive requests for pages. They might be reading some pages they downloaded earlier. They might have followed a link out of your site, and then come back later. They might have interrupted their reading for a quick game of Minesweeper. You just don't know.

ix. You can't tell how long people spent on your site. Apart from the problems in the previous point, there is one other complete show-stopper. Programs which report the time on the site count the time between the first and the last request. But they don't count the time spent on the final page, and this is often the majority of the whole visit.

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Elizabeth, that 31 may also be the number of pages accessed per day, rather than discrete visits. I use sitemeter.com and they break the information down into visits and pages per visit. They also provide the length of time a visitor remains on the site if he or she checks out more than one page. What I find most interesting is the referral site information; I like knowing how people find me.

I began with an average of five visits per day to the site and am now up to eight or ten. This doesn't reflect number of pages accessed, just unique visits. All of my commissions thus far have been through word of mouth or through people seeing my miniportfolio; I have been treating my site only as an online portfolio to which I can refer people who call to express an interest in a portrait. It did net me an interview with a journalist from an affluent-lifestyles sort of magazine, which resulted in a photo of a portrait and some text in an article about unusual gifts.

I have another site that deals with ecotourism in my area; that gets double or triple the visits that my portrait site does, but it's also been up since '96.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Thanks Leslie,

The information I linked to above makes a case that the counters are incorrect too. It is all Greek to me.

My hosting site says they guess by "number of distinct hosts served" but this is still incorrect.

"Successful requests" is the nearest you'll get to total number of hits.

I have had a few reports regarding the errors on my site. (Thanks Michele for checking). It is working fine for me and we are guessing some people are using dial up. So (help Cynthia) I went ahead and re-uploaded my enlarged html pages with smaller, optimized images. Hopefully this helped.

But a great tip for you all should you be having problems reported from others that you are not seeing:

I cannot replicate this error, everything you've described looks fine to me and all the images are loading. The only thing I can think of is if the pictures you are mentioning are too large and are timing out before they completely load. As we are on a T3 connection, this would not really affect us as much as it would someone on a dial-up connection.

Try going to this site:

http://www.amegaproxy.com/

This is an anonymous browsing site, which basically means that you will be browsing through an external server, i.e. one outside your network.

The site looks and acts fine from here, so any issue is going to be a local issue on your side.

[Marvin Mattelson]

What makes you think Steven Turner is correct? What he says is in conflict with what I have found in my research, some of which I included above. If you hadn't noticed much misinformation abounds on both the web in general and in technical forums as well.

One needs to be highly selective in the information one accept as gospel these days.

I remember Elton John once commenting on reading outrageous lies about himself published in a tabloid newspaper, yet when he turned to the next page, and read an article about another celebrity, how readily willing he was to believe every word.

[Cynthia Daniel]

I see statistics as only a guide, but not anything I'd take to the bank. I've tried more than once to understand all of my statistics and it is a very complex subject. One of the difficulties is the issue of dynamically assigned IP addresses. If every time a person logs on they are assigned a different IP address, they could look like a new, unique visitor, when they actually are not new.

I've had conversations with WebTrends because they are the ones providing my statistics and they explained to me the difficulty in tabulating how someone got to my site. The explanation sounded reasonable, but I can't remember it well enough to repeat it.

Bottom line is, consider your stats a guide only and don't spend too much time trying to understand every little detail or it will drive you nuts.

[Michael Georges]

Further: Your website is simply an online portfolio - a place to send clients to view your work, read about you and get information about commissioning work. It is a presence that is accessible almost anytime and anywhere.

The real thing to track is how many potential clients are contacting you and how many of those turn into actual work.

[Mike McCarty]

I think one of the biggest benefits of a web site is that it explains your pricing. I'm never very comfortable doing this, not to mention that it can be fairly complex when you consider three mediums on varying sizes.

When I am approached I always try and encourage them to go to my web site and get my current pricing. (My last site got fried, by terrorists no doubt. I am presently building a new one.)

[Elizabeth Schott]

What makes you think Steven Turner is correct? What he says is in conflict with what I have found in my research, some of which I included above. If you hadn't noticed much misinformation abounds on both the web in general and in technical forums as well.

Marvin, I never said he was correct. This is what I said:

The information I linked to above, makes a case that the counters are incorrect too. It is all Greek to me.

Maybe it is just the way he tallies his statistics. Not everyone uses Analog (maybe?), and there are more than 20 versions.

The reason I started this was I thought it would be fun to see how many "fill in your information here" responses, people were getting with small sites.

Michael, that is exactly what I use my site for, just to refer people who have called me to see more of my work and as Mike said, it is a good place to re-explain your pricing.

Not to mention it was a lot of fun, headache and challange to design and produce your own site. I thought at my age, I should learn to do one, once.

For those of you who have not done this, I can't tell you how much you should appreciate Cynthia's work. Imagine just trying to keep a font the same size in 10 browsers - amazing.

Marvin, what is your research?

[Marvin Mattelson]

I want to get to the bottom of everything that interests me. I also want to have my site be as successful as possible. I feel that understanding is the key to success in all of life's endeavors.

The reason I chose to design it myself, was to have control over how it looks and how it works. I develop and print my reference photos for the same reason.

Although the investment in time and effort was great, it was worth it since I learned so much. I feel my site has a unique look that reflects my sensibilities completely. I can add, subtract and alter it at a moment's notice.

I have spent countless hours searching site design and statistical analysis on the web. I don't really document my "research" for I have no plans to write a book or publish a paper in the scientific community. I just read as much as I can and apply what makes the most sense to me.

Maybe one day I'll teach a class on all I've learned, but truthfully, I enjoy painting so much more, both the doing and the teaching, and find it far more satisfying. Painting is infinitely more complex and intriguing than web design, at least in my book.

[Elizabeth Schott]

I concur Marvin. When I designed my site, I thought I would be diving into a layout much like an annual report. I was so surprised at how different web design vs. page design is.

I believe the first rollover button I made with an image took me 5 hours because with every step I had to re-read the manual. I must have read this 3" binder 15 times, but now I can change things in a flash.

Like I mentioned above, though, getting relative type size to be consistent in all browsers - that still escapes me, so I did most of my design in Photoshop.

I too, like to know how things work and found learning html code to be like a crossword. Nothing was more fun than printing out my pages by source and editing the code while at volleyball tournaments.

I hope everyone gets a chance to try it.

You had mentioned your research, and I just wondered if there was something you can direct me to. But I am not going to worry about my "hits" or "visits", because unlike retail advertising it doesn't bring them in the door the next day. But who knows down the road.

You might like this site, it is about web design:

SitePoint