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What is Traffic Data?

These data are often called "Visitor Statistics", which is completely wrong. You can never get any information on the visitors. What you get is mostly technical data on the computer and the connection your visitor used. Therefore the correct term is: "Website Traffic Data".

Example: Suppose an European Ship Captain visits Dubai with his ship. To check his e-mail he goes to the ship agent's office and uses one of the office computers. Now if he happens to surf and come in on your site and you are collecting traffic data you will get:
- one click for a visit from Arab Emirates (Dubai)
- one click for the appropriate time zone or country (territory)

Suppose also the same computer is normally used by one of the secretaries to make documents in the Arabic language, then you can also get:
- one click on Arabic (Saudi) language
In addition you get:
- Browser version
- Screen size
- etc
But there is no way you can tell the visitor was an European or whether it was an office clerk or a Ship Master.

The text you write for your real visitors who are people you don't know anything about. The data you get are all about the computers - not about the people.

Sources for Traffic Data:

• Visitor counter gives a "hit" for each visitor on that page. Some counters also give traffic data. When you pick a counter always choose the option "no reload". If you have some or several links on your page(s) and your visitor checks out the links, you don't want any extra "hits" every time he/she comes back = reloads your page.
  
  In case your visitor have a slow connection, it is possible he gets restless while waiting for your page to download. Then may be he/she hits the mouse a couple of times more. These would be registered as reloads. If you include reloads it will distort total count and render your statistics worthless.
  
  Traffic for its own sake is of value only for a site selling advertising space. A site with 100.000 visitors per month can charge considerably more than a site with less than 10.000 visitors per month for the same space. A lot of non-targeted traffic only brings a lot of dissatisfied visitors, who find out they came to the wrong place.
  
  Number of visitors will vary every month, i.e. it will go up and down. One reason is that the calendar months are of different length. So you should keep a record of "visitors per day" or use for instance a 4 week period. If this value suddenly drops very much then something is probably wrong somewhere.
  
  The number will also vary due to holidays and yearly seasons. The holidays are different in different countries and the seasons are different in the northern and southern hemispheres. The busy and slow seasons also vary in different sectors; compare for instance "gardening" and "shipping".
  
  In 2007 / 2008 the webpage "visitor counter market" changed, at least partly because search engines started frowning on sitewide links. When you add a counter on every page you will in fact give "sitewide links" because every counter code includes usually 2-3 URLs back to the data centre. Google decided to discount such links and they have dropped in PR value.
  
  A direct consequence of this is, it's getting difficult to find a counter giving separate counts for each page - the webpage specific counters require a lot more computer capacity and the small value of the links doesn't compensate for that anymore. Usually the number of counters per website is restricted by requiring a different e-mail address for each counter and/or not accepting free e-mail services like hotmail, g-mail, Yahoo mail, etc.
  
  Some counter suppliers have given their counters to "bad / malicious" websites and you could risk for instance getting worms / spyware to your visitors' computers through the network of counters. I have therefore checked the counters listed below with McAfee Site Safety Analysis. Those listed below have got a clean report.
  
  A few counters will include in the code a hidden advertisement with a link to something that can be completely unrelated to your website and that one is always a paid link. This is another thing the search engines don't like and can therefore cause you problems. In the code there is always a strong comment not to remove that part. It's, however, better for you to remove it - just to avoid problems. If the counter then doesn't work - get another one.

Free visitor counters:


Hit counters Digital point Easy counter Web counter Webpage Counter with some stats Crazy Egg Clicky Free Counters (UK) Jiffy Counter Amazing Counters



• Traffic data collector usually means some kind of banner on each page. Check out each different one so you get the kind of data you want and a banner that suits the style on your pages. It is a good idea to have both counter and data collector on every page - each from different source. In case one service suddenly stops their services or breaks down you still have the other one as a back-up.
  
  Data collectors using "banners" on each page give more reliable numbers than those you get from the server log data.
  
  List of free visitor traffic data collectors:

  Site Meter One Stat Bravenet Statcounter Web Stat Extreme Tracking CQ Counter, in Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, and Português. AFS Statistics, incl. exit links analysis. Hits Log, incl. outgoing links data.

  Google Analytics . Free tracking and analysis. You can customize the code and for instance compare two different metrics's trends over time. You can include downloads of, for instance .pdf files and if you have Google site search you can incorporate tracking of those results as well. Google Analytics Sign Up. Google's Directory of free website and webpage counters. Some also give additional traffic data.

  
  
• Many web hosting servers offer site level search for the sites on their server. Site level search you can also get from some search engines. If you have much information on your site it will help your visitors to find the information they look for, even if only a few will use it.
  
  Site level search engines will also provide you with some kind of traffic data (usually "index" page only - if that's where your search box is) and what is more important for you, the "keywords" your visitors have used. Especially you should study those keywords not found on your site. These keywords suggest what you should add in your content. Site level search also provides you with a backdoor into some search engines' data banks.
Some site level search sources:
- Free find search, limited to 3.000 pages/32 MB per site.
- Giga Blast, limited to 100.000 pages/site.
- What U Seek, limited to 1.000 pages/site.

Site level search is a complement to your menu, even if just a few visitors only use it.  See Don Pedro's Menu and Site Level Search.

Different Kinds of Data

The different kinds of data you can get have been given standardized definitions in an effort to make different sources comparable.

Below I have put the different kinds of data in order of importance, according to my own opinion.

1. Referrers, referrals or referring sites are either search engines or incoming links from other sites. It also gives visitors coming from a link in an email. For search engines you get the name of each search engine and the search terms ("keywords") your visitor used to find your page. For incoming links you get the URL of the page from which the visitor has come. This information is very important.
   
   
2. Browsers and Operating Systems, for instance IE 6.0 and Windows XP 2000. You cannot see how many visitors have that combination, the details are presented separately. If the same visitor comes back to your site using a different browser version and/or Operating System he will be registered as a new (unique) visitor.
   
   Browser versions you need to know so you can decide on what level to build your page code. IE 5.0+, for instance, reads JavaScript while IE 4.0 cannot (at least not as well). If 98% or more of your visitors use IE 5.0 or better it means you can well use some JavaScript on your pages.
   
   Remember however, if 0.1 % of your visitors use for instance IE 4.0 and you have 5.000 unique visitors per month, it means 5 people per month or 60 people per year cannot properly view your JavaScript pages.
   
   
3. Page views gives total number of all your pages requested. Divided by total number of visitors (unique + return) you get "page view per visitor". That's a number many designers say should not exceed "4". What is "normal" for your site depends on what kind of site you have. If it's an informational site, I would say a value of 2-3 is good, because it means most of your visitors found what they were looking for within 2 "clicks".
   
   If your site is an "e-shop" the same isn't valid any more. On such sites the customer usually have to follow a certain procedure = a certain number of steps to fill his/her "basket" and then also complete the payment procedure.
   
   Hits will register every time your visitor's browser asks for a page (a file) from your server. External files as well as images give extra "hits" in many programs you place on your server. If you use an independent traffic data source, which means a banner on each page, each time a visitor comes to a certain page gives one hit only; i.e. each time the banner is requested you get one hit. Provided you have chosen the "no-reload" option you should get an almost correct figure.
   
   
4. Unique vs. repeat visitors. To tell the difference between these the statistics programs register each visitors "IP" address. This can be the internet service providers (ISP) server number or if your visitor comes from a network, that server's IP number. Every connection must have a number, otherwise your pages cannot be sent from your server to your visitors computer.
   
   Unique visitors means the first visit from a certain IP number. If it's a company network, a school, or an internet café, all subsequent visitors are registered as return (repeat) visitors even if the people are all coming to your site for the very first time.
   
   For home computers each one will have an unique IP number, which often depends on kind of account with the ISP. The first part of the number identifies the network. The last part identifies the individual computer; this part changes every time that computer is connected to the Net. Every program isn't the same in this respect.
   
   Some statistics resources use "cookies". Basically this should identify each computer individually, but some people have their "cookies" switched off
   
   
5. "Bounce Rate" gives the number ( or percentage ) of those who have left your site after one page. Either they were disappointed or then they found straight away what they were looking for. If people on average stay 6-7 minutes or more they are probably satisfied. If they stay on average 2 minutes or less they are most probably dissatisfied. If short stay is combined with many (4 or more) page views per visitor, then your visitors seem to have problems finding their information.
   
   On average first time visitors to a website stay only about 2 minutes, while returning visitors tend to stay on average about 4 minutes.
   
   
6. Countries or continents and/or languages of your visitors are not given by every free data source. World regions are important if you are targeting a certain region or country. Languages could give a measurement on how big proportion of your visitors are non-native English speakers. This taken together with countries gives a rough indication of the level of English you can use.
   
   
7. You shouldn't forget the search queries people has used in the search engines to find your website / webpage. With the search engines getting more sophisticated, some of them ( for instance Google ) can construct long sentences out the words found on long text pages. These long queries can give you a lot of new information. Especially the questions people have used you can use to get ideas on new additional content. You can get an analysis of the search queries at 103Bees.
   
   When you start getting search engine visitors, who have used those long queries, may be you will notice a lot of long queries that each appears once only (i.e. monthly ?). This is called the "long tail", and as Matt Cutts has said: "The long tail is very, very long".
   
   
8. Some statistics providers do not use IP numbers. Instead they use the domain name "extension" (i.e.: .com, .uk, .org, etc.). In this case .com, .org, .net, etc. are usually registered as US sources, which exaggerates number of American visitors. See also Don Pedro's Internet Country Codes.
   
   If you have an informational site and over 50% of your visitors are non-native English speakers it can be a good idea to provide everyone with a "print-ready" version of your text. Then each visitor can print-out your text and study it at his/her leisure. AND if your visitor happens to have an expensive connection there's then no need to sit reading your text on-line. When you provide a "print-ready" version, delete your background and all graphics / images - it's more "printer-friendly".
   
   
9. Entry and exit pages gives your entry pages ordered in a descending order - the most accessed pages at the top. Basically it shows which pages are most accessed from search engines. Incoming links mostly go to your Home page ("index" page). Exit pages could be those pages where your visitor either found what he/she was looking for or where he/she got tired of your site.
   
   
10. Visit duration tries to measure the time from your visitors arrival until exit from your site. It can very well include the time the visitors computer was open on your page and the visitor went taking care of his/her "needs", may be getting a cup of coffee or something else. Don't take this number too seriously.
    
    If you follow the duration, don't look at absolute numbers. Use averages and/or relative figures (%). Then you concentrate on trends over a long time - may be several years. I have seen some data that suggest new (first time) visitors to a website stay on average only about two minutes, while returning visitors stay on average about 4 minutes.
    
    From my own data (Don Pedro's Shipping Job Links) I can see that visitors via incoming links tend to stay longer and also return more often. Those that come from search engines are more like "come and go". Remember what is valid for one website doesn't necessarily apply to other websites in different sectors and/or with different themes.

If you are running your own server you can get a lot of more details from Funnel Web (free). Prices for commercial data analyses programs vary very much depending on how much detail they give. The highest price I have seen offered on the Net is USD 3.000/year.

Don't drown yourself in details. The individual raw data are not 100% correct. As long as you work with big aggregates - minimum 1.000 individual data - statistically small errors will balance out. Even if you are looking at a group of 5.000 visitors, if the distribution is 51% from search engines and 49% from incoming links, you can only say the two are roughly equal. If the distribution (still total 5.000) would be 60-40, then you could confidently say one is bigger than the other.

There are two main reasons why the data never can be absolutely correct: the Internet itself and the software we use for measuring and sorting the data. Because of these difficulties there have for some time been some "standards" for traffic data analytics ( metrics ) programs to follow.

These standards should make data from different sources comparable, but often different programs follow their own "standards". One such case is, for instance: Google Analytics. If you decide to apply Google analytics statistics, check out all information on their metrics first and then don't compare these data as such with other sources.

Very Short Visits

When you work with your server log data you can get very many visits of 0-2 seconds only. These can be attributed partly to how the web analytics data collection is done and partly to human behaviour. The server's data collection only "sees" each page or file when it's loaded / requested.

The final action = exit from your site can not be recorded by your web server. Therefore "0" ( zero ) second visits are those visitors who look at only one page and then leaves the site, may be they found what they were looking for.

IP numbers indexes:

RIPE Europe, North and Central Africa, Middle East, ARIN North America and South Africa APNIC Asia-Pacific, LACNIC Latin and Central America (English, Português, Español)

Complete IP and domain name look-up. See also Don Pedro's Internet Country Codes.

What to do with these Data?

Just collecting data doesn't help much, you need to analyze your data and find trends.

With the trends you will get a picture of how your traffic is developing and from where your visitors are coming. Probably you want to target a certain region of the world. The traffic data will provide you with information for that as well as info + ideas on how to develop your site.

The visitor counters will show when number of visitors increases or decreases on each page. To know what to do and if necessary to do something you have to follow your numbers continuously.

As long as traffic increases continuously or is almost steady (for a while), leave the site as it is for the time being. Don't make any drastic changes "out of the blue". With the help of your data you can make a well reasoned development plan for your site. You can then compare the results you are hoping for with the numbers you actually get.

You need a visitor counter on every page. Visitors coming via search engines can enter any page directly depending on the content of each page. Same goes for returning visitors, which have either bookmarked a certain page or may be type in your URL directly.

When you get a search engine "referral" with a search term that cannot be found as such on any of your pages, it often means there's probably no page available in the databanks with exactly those words. May be your page contains something similar? If so may be you should expand the text with a paragraph or two describing and explaining exactly those "funny words".

Summary

Sometimes the search terms used makes no sense at all (from the site owner's view point), because you don't know what the searcher had in his/her mind when typing them. People do not search for keywords, they use the search terms as descriptions of what they really want to find.

You need a visitor counter on every page. Visitors coming via incoming links, on the contrary, will mostly (about 90%) come to your "index" page first. This is because a site's "Home" page seldom breaks down and the file name never changes. Thus it's easier for the webmaster giving you the link, to monitor all his outgoing links.