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Re: please review... From Gil at ListsNow.com on 21 Oct '99 replying to please review... posted by Alexander McAndrew Alexander What stats software are you using? I have a preference for Analog (http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/analog/). A view is a page view or request, a hit, in my book, is a visit to the site and can lead to several views of different pages during the visit. I don't like either term and some folks use them interchangeably. Can lead to folks talking about massive numbers of "hits" that are really just a few folks coming and looking at a lot of different pages. Don't confuse either with requests for files or page elements like images. That said, the important stat, again, my opinion, is visitors, followed by requests for pages. I compare new to total visitors to get a feel (at best a feel because so many ISPs assign random DNS - i.e. 2 different AOL DNS may be the same person coming back yet look like 2 different hosts visiting) for repeat visits. This is your livelihood. "Look and leaves" do not a business make. I also track requests for pages, page by page, because certain pages on my site are $$ links and others are information. What I want to see is how long they stay and how they travel around the site. I also want to see the ratio of visitors to page requests, again an indication of how much looking around they do. Finally it tells me which pages I need to work on. I can look at referring pages to see which internal links get followed most often as well as determining where my visitors came from outside my site. Fact is, the whole language we use for this is false. Nobody actually "visits" your site. They actually request pages and files which get transferred to their computer for viewing. That is why the page is still on screen if you lose your connection. BTW, you CAN add metas with Front Page. Do so.

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>Alexander > >What stats software are you using? I have a preference for Analog (http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/analog/). > >A view is a page view or request, a hit, in my book, is a visit to the site and can lead to several views of different pages during the visit. I don't like either term and some folks use them interchangeably. Can lead to folks talking about massive numbers of "hits" that are really just a few folks coming and looking at a lot of different pages. Don't confuse either with requests for files or page elements like images. > >That said, the important stat, again, my opinion, is visitors, followed by requests for pages. > >I compare new to total visitors to get a feel (at best a feel because so many ISPs assign random DNS - i.e. 2 different AOL DNS may be the same person coming back yet look like 2 different hosts visiting) for repeat visits. This is your livelihood. "Look and leaves" do not a business make. > >I also track requests for pages, page by page, because certain pages on my site are $$ links and others are information. What I want to see is how long they stay and how they travel around the site. I also want to see the ratio of visitors to page requests, again an indication of how much looking around they do. Finally it tells me which pages I need to work on. > >I can look at referring pages to see which internal links get followed most often as well as determining where my visitors came from outside my site. > >Fact is, the whole language we use for this is false. Nobody actually "visits" your site. They actually request pages and files which get transferred to their computer for viewing. That is why the page is still on screen if you lose your connection. > >BTW, you CAN add metas with Front Page. Do so.