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Dr. Website® Archives 2002Sept.12, 2002
Dear Dr. Website: how can you track hits and visits? How can you tell the difference if they both are requesting or retrieving files for the webpage? Thank You Answer: To use a log file analysis tool, you'll need access to your site's log file. Most hosts provide access to your log file, although some hosts may require you to pay for that feature. The analysis software provides you with statistics on various aspects of your site, such as domains that visit your site, which areas of your site are getting the most traffic and conversely, which areas of the site aren't getting any traffic. Most importantly, they provide access to those site that are referring visitors to your site--you can see where your traffic's coming from. Additionally, the software lets you see which search terms are being used to find your site, and which search engines have indexed your site. Understand that the log file analysis software is not generally cheap, and it usually is sold on a "per site" basis, which means that if you have three domains (sites) you'll need to purchase a license that covers multiple sites. Online analysis tools such as our "TheCounter.com" offer similar statistics, but do not require the use of the log files from you site. Instead, you place an image or bit of HTML code on your site's main page, and each time your site is accessed, TheCounter records information from each visitor's web browser. Statistics from such an online service include the number of unique visitors, referrers, if the user's browser is Java and/or JavaScript capable, what browser they are using, which search engines and terms are being used to access your site, along with additional stats. BTW, like the terms "hits" and "pageviews," "visitors" is different from "unique visitors." The term visitors includes ALL visitors to the site, even if the same person hit the site 50 times in one day. Unique visitors means just that, each visitor to the site is only counted once.
http://www.thecounter.com/
--Dr.Website Question: Answer:
<body> Thanks, --Dr.Website ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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