Analysing Site Traffic - HELP!!!

[RaceCarsDirect]

HI

I own and run www.racecarsdirect.com which has become the largest FREE Race Car marketplace on the Internet.

I'm just in the process of having the site redeveloped and writing a business, which will transform the site from FREE to FEE based (revenue here we come!).

Where I'm having the most trouble is analysing the site traffic. How many people visit the site and what they are doing is obviously key to my plans.

Here's my dilema. The company that hosts the site provides free software called 'Live Stats'. This tells me that I'm receiving over 130,000 hits a day but only 2,400 sessions and only 14,000 page views.

I'm concerned that the 'Live Stats' software is tracking the wrong pages and/or three years of efforts in promoting the site have only resulted in 2,400 sessions per day! Surely the number of hits should equal the page views (roughly)?

On top of that I downloaded the log files for yesterday and ran them against some analysis software, which told me I only had 1,200 unique users!!! Surely with 130,000 hits this can't be the case?

What I'm looking for is someone who can finally provide me with conclusive proof which figures are right and why.

CAN ANYONE HELP PLEASE? I'M HAPPY TO PAY FOR YOUR TIME.

Email me - info@racecarsdirect.com

Regards

Matthew

[EdJones]

I'd like a good tutorial on using web analysers too.

My provider gives me Webtrends reports, which make the site look much better than I had hoped.

How does one critically look at these things? Is there a good write-up somewhere?

Thanks,too...Ed

[Ribeyed]

sent relpy to your email, as i was not registered when i read this post

[Compguy Pete]

Ok lets look at this...

Hits - Are NOT page views... This became very clear back in the early .com boom of the late 90's. Hit's are actually a counter of all the requests to have files from your server sent to the client. Every image, every page and every thing sent from the server is counted as a hit. Doesn’t matter if it's a 1x1 spacer gif if it's requested to be sent out it's a hit. SO how does this relate to the .com boom? Well when people were paid per impression for banner ads many webmaster would say well we get 1 million hits a day! well that sounds great to a stupid advertiser back in the day. Till they found out it was really only maybe 2000 visitors that were requesting small images that would make this 'hits' number look impressive.

Excuse me but I forget what sessions stand for... I want to say it relates to the number of times people have been there as repeats and unique visits. However I'm sure someone else can expand on that more, because I'm not 100% sure.

Now look at your 1,200 unique users divide that number by the 14,000 page views. You get 11.67 page views per unique visitor. If you use the 2400 number you get half of that. This is key to your success on finding funding for your business. On top of market conditions and other factors you have to worry about…

How is this key? Well if you’re only keeping them for 6 pages on average before they leave is that enough to have them stay long enough to pay for the services offered?