Site Reporting

PR4! Whoohooo!

Anyway, the way our site stats are reported, they will tell me how many
hits or pages originated from various search engines

However one page almost always represents one hit, meaning that as soon
as the user moves to a second page, he or she is lost to the search
engine report, and their further activity is reported as originating
from a "direct address or bookmark"

The situation is identical with pages and hits originating from links.

Question, is there a tool which will allow me to track peoples activity
by origin as they move around the site?

Alternatively, if I have 15% orginating from Search engines and 10%
from links, the remainder being lumped into "Direct Address/Bookmarks"
is it safe to assume that the real figure is 60% search engines, 40%
links, because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

Hope this all makes sense.

Jim
http://www.premiumiv.com

"JimD" <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com> wrote:

Alternatively, if I have 15% orginating from Search engines and 10%
from links, the remainder being lumped into "Direct Address/Bookmarks"
is it safe to assume that the real figure is 60% search engines, 40%
links, because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

Hence "bookmarks". Also, people block referer, and there are quite some
bots hitting your site(s) (I often estimate this at about 10%)

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

John Bokma wrote:

"JimD" <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com> wrote:

Alternatively, if I have 15% orginating from Search engines and 10%
from links, the remainder being lumped into "Direct Address/Bookmarks"
is it safe to assume that the real figure is 60% search engines, 40%
links, because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

Hence "bookmarks". Also, people block referer, and there are quite some
bots hitting your site(s) (I often estimate this at about 10%)

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

Bots are in fact reported seperately

http://www.premiumiv.com/

On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 19:30:22 +0200, JimD <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com>
wrote:

Alternatively, if I have 15% orginating from Search engines and 10%
from links, the remainder being lumped into "Direct Address/Bookmarks"
is it safe to assume that the real figure is 60% search engines, 40%
links, because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

Hence "bookmarks". Also, people block referer, and there are quite some
bots hitting your site(s) (I often estimate this at about 10%)

Bots are in fact reported seperately

Only if they are recognized as such; there is no other way to
differentiate between bot and notbot then to read user agent string, which
can be easily forged.

Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com
http://www.ph-meter.info
http://www.terapia-kregoslupa.waw.pl

On 9 Oct 2006 09:42:09 -0700, "JimD" <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com>
wrote:

PR4! Whoohooo!

Anyway, the way our site stats are reported, they will tell me how many
hits or pages originated from various search engines

However one page almost always represents one hit, meaning that as soon
as the user moves to a second page, he or she is lost to the search
engine report, and their further activity is reported as originating
from a "direct address or bookmark"

The situation is identical with pages and hits originating from links.

What are you using now?

Question, is there a tool which will allow me to track peoples activity
by origin as they move around the site?

I use WebCEO. That tracks navigation. So does Google Analytics to a
degree. I'm not entirely sure what you'd want so I'd suggest using
Google Analytics because it's free. If it gives you what you want, all
well and good, if it doesn't, it'll give you some grasp of what other
packages actually do.

Alternatively, if I have 15% orginating from Search engines and 10%
from links, the remainder being lumped into "Direct Address/Bookmarks"
is it safe to assume that the real figure is 60% search engines, 40%
links, because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

Hope this all makes sense.

It's open to interpretation.

BB

Jim
http://www.premiumiv.com

--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-sitemap.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/art-prints-sitemap.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/lithographs.htm

"JimD" <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com> wrote:

John Bokma wrote:

Hence "bookmarks". Also, people block referer, and there are quite some
bots hitting your site(s) (I often estimate this at about 10%)

Bots are in fact reported seperately

Don't quote sigs
If you use a link as a sig, use a proper sig separator, thanks.

With 10% I mean bots you probably don't want on your site. Bots that try
to look like normal users, or even SE bots. Looking for email addresses,
forms for comment spamming, etc.

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

Big Bill wrote:

On 9 Oct 2006 09:42:09 -0700, "JimD" <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com
wrote:

PR4! Whoohooo!

Anyway, the way our site stats are reported, they will tell me how many
hits or pages originated from various search engines

However one page almost always represents one hit, meaning that as soon
as the user moves to a second page, he or she is lost to the search
engine report, and their further activity is reported as originating
from a "direct address or bookmark"

The situation is identical with pages and hits originating from links.

What are you using now?

Question, is there a tool which will allow me to track peoples activity
by origin as they move around the site?

I use WebCEO. That tracks navigation. So does Google Analytics to a
degree. I'm not entirely sure what you'd want so I'd suggest using
Google Analytics because it's free. If it gives you what you want, all
well and good, if it doesn't, it'll give you some grasp of what other
packages actually do.

Alternatively, if I have 15% orginating from Search engines and 10%
from links, the remainder being lumped into "Direct Address/Bookmarks"
is it safe to assume that the real figure is 60% search engines, 40%
links, because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

Hope this all makes sense.

It's open to interpretation.

BB

Jim
http://www.premiumiv.com

--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-sitemap.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/art-prints-sitemap.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/lithographs.htm

Hi Bill

Sorry I can't get my head around the quoting conventions etc on this
site. Our hosting company appears to oblige us to use Awstats, which I
don't think is much cop. Other people get sexy pie charts of where
their customers come from, I get "Unknown" for everyone.

Is it possible to switch reports without changing host? Any
recommendations...

Cheers

JimD

http://www.premiumiv.com

JimD wrote:

Question, is there a tool which will allow me to track peoples activity
by origin as they move around the site?

I have that option, but quite frankly it does not tell me all that
much.

What you want to know are:

% referrals from search engines
% referrrals from within your own website.
% direct hits from bots
% direct hits from users
% referrals from other web sites.

# of page views per visit is also good to know. As well as as average
time per visit.

JimD wrote:

because no-one actually types addresses into the address bar?

They don't?

--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.com

On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:25:20 +0200, JimD <jamesdaltrey (AT) premiumiv (DOT) com>
wrote:

Sorry I can't get my head around the quoting conventions etc on this
site. Our hosting company appears to oblige us to use Awstats, which I
don't think is much cop. Other people get sexy pie charts of where
their customers come from, I get "Unknown" for everyone.

Is it possible to switch reports without changing host? Any
recommendations...

Check if you have access to raw logs. If you do, you can use any program
you want.

Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com
http://www.ph-meter.info
http://www.terapia-kregoslupa.waw.pl