Web statistics are of two types. There are server based statistics and there are user based statistics. Web server statistics come directly from the hosting (company’s) server, i.e. the computer that sends out the web pages to your browser over the internet. User statistics come from your browser.
Each time your web server gets and answers a request for a page from your website, it generates an entry in its logs. Log entries are very simple things, barely more than:
- Who asked (in the form of their ip address)
- What file(s) they asked for
- When they asked (a timestamp).
You don’t want to look at that, so a web server log analyzer summarizes this raw data into pictures, graphs, and tables. When you look this information it will tell you when your server is busy with your visitors. A log analyzer looks at EVERY request, but it doesn’t get a lot of information about EACH.
Browser statistics come from the internet browser that you are using right now. Right now, right here, you’re browser, be it Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome, is talking to one of my servers. It’s letting my server know the who, what and when. The browser, though is capable of telling my servers a lot more. It will tell how long you stayed on a page, and how, exactly, you left. Did you press a button, fill out a form, click a link? It will give me much more information about how you behave on my site (or yours), but there are many ways for you not to give me that information. Browser statistics, like Google Analytics and others, are based on programming scripts. When a web page loads in a browser, the browser often is asked to run several programs, specific to the page. In addition to providing info on where and what you browse, these programs often make menues cascade, fill in select box options, rotate slides, and expand text areas. When javascript is turned off, you don’t see these nifty visual effects, and your browser doesn’t report to Google that you just browsed a page.
Careful analysis of how your website is performing requires the analysis of both types of statistics, not just one. Contact this Twin Cities web marketing expert to find our how you can get more out of your website through the use of web analyzers.
