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| July 31, 2002
Your Measurement Buyer’s Guide: Web Measurement Hit or Miss? by Lindsey Wyckoff, Staff Writer
Now that your Web site is up and running, you may find yourself itching to know a bit more about your Web traffic than how many hits you are receiving. Fortunately, to gain this knowledge you no longer need to be a computer whiz or have unlimited resources. Before we go through your options, however, here are a couple of caveats. First, you should know that web traffic is, by its nature, difficult to track with great accuracy. A huge amount of data can be collected on Web activity, but much of it is only vaguely related to actual human visitors. (See, for instance, this page on WebMonkey, and, for a hint at some of the controversy on the topic, this article from InternetWeek.com.) For years we've been saying that HITS stand for How Idiots Track Success, and now it looks like the rest of the industry agrees with us. Increasingly, the industry is agreeing on ‘visits’ as the standard quantitative measure for valid web site measurement. At a recent meeting of industry leaders, there was general consensus that, when it came to measuring cost per impression on the web, we should be referring to ‘visits,’ not ‘hits’ or ‘page views.’ (More on that meeting in our next issue.) And, second, however you choose to do the analysis, you will probably end up with an astonishingly large amount of data, tables and charts. As Web marketing expert Jim Sterne says, “Log files are the results of a Web server doing its job, and not a formal effort to capture valuable business intelligence... Mountains of data are collected in your server logs every day... it’s a matter of torturing usable information out of them.” (See his article The Feedback Loop Gap and others on Web metrics here.) Like we always say, “Research without insight is meaningless,” so be prepared to hire some expert analysis assistance, or to take a Web-savvy buddy out for lunch to help you make sense of it all. Now back to the good news. You can easily track your Web site traffic by either outsourcing the job to a service, or by purchasing software to analyze your own Web server traffic log files in-house. In fact, very often your Web hosting service provides basic traffic analysis as part of your service package. Asking them about it is a good first step. In this article we won't discuss the technically demanding construct-your-own-database technique, but if you'd like to find out more, read the WebMonkey Tracking Tutorial, also mentioned above. Outsourced: Simple, painless and sometimes “free” There are a wide variety of companies today that will keep track of your Web traffic for you. Rather than using your own server's traffic log, these services require that you add a few lines of code to each of your pages to capture information about visitors. As long as your visitors have both JavaScript and cookies enabled (as most do), then even the most basic of these services can capture more information about your traffic than your log files do. Most basic services will provide you with the following: counter statistics, where visitors were referred from, how often they came back, what system they used and how much time they spent on the site. Many of the more advanced services provide similar data, but with the possible advantage of offering you more customized reports. Some of these services are rather pricey, but most companies also have a minimal cost option. These are often referred to as “free,” however, more often than not they require that you include their logo on your page. For the lowest cost option, just take a look at what most companies refer to as their “personal” or “basic” edition. Here is The Measurement Standard short list of Web analytics providers: WebTrends, WebSideStory, Website Tracker and Clickzs. WebTrends HitBox by WebSideStory Website Tracker Clickzs Do it yourself: Commercial Web traffic log analysis software The basics of log files: Web log files are fairly simple: When you are online you are connected to a server somewhere. You request page information and the server sends it to you via the Internet, broken up into pieces. Your Web browser reassembles the page information and there you have it on your screen. The server keeps track of this activity in log files, recording data concerning who requested what and when. The log files sit waiting for someone or something to come along and analyze the captured data. Web traffic analysis software takes the data from your server and automates the analysis and report generation process. The log files are generally broken down into categories such as hits, pages, visitors, errors. If you'd like to learn more, a good place to start is the great Tracking Tutorial (mentioned above) on WebMonkey, which is worth a read regardless of your experience level. Also check out Demystify Your Log Files on builder.com. Log file analyzers are also available for a variety of budgets. Many are available as shareware or freeware, such as The Webalizer and Analog, two popular products that can read log files off of your server, analyze them and generate reports in a variety of languages. If you are looking for more than just a general overview of your Web traffic, the following software solutions offer more complex log file analysis with reports to match for a relatively low cost: NetTracker Urchin WebTrends Summary: Should you do it yourself? If analyzing your own log files requires time or expertise that you don’t have, then choose an outside vendor; the cost doesn’t necessarily have to break the bank (or open the bank at all), and the process is quick and relatively painless on the user’s part. Plus, the outside provider’s code embedded in your site often collects more sophisticated data than is available in your server’s log files. If depth is what you are looking for, then outsourcing is a solid recommendation. Whether you utilize log files available to you or outsource the whole process, monitoring the traffic on your Web site is just one of the many tools for measuring success. So, explore the options and make a decision. With such cheap and easy options available, it is a good place to dive into the measurement pool. For another article on this topic (a bit dated, yet still informative) see Analyze Your Web Site Traffic on builder.com. We at The Measurement Standard would like to hear about our readers’ experiences with Web traffic analysis and any other measurement adventures as well. Please email them to Katharine Delahaye Paine.
133 Islington Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 |
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