Traffic reports and statistics
How are the statistics collected?
Every page on the website has a JavaScript at the bottom. You web browser downloads the page, then goes through and downloads style sheets, images and JavaScripts one by one. When the statistics JavaScript gets downloaded our server remembers who downloaded it (e.g. web browser and IP address), and when, to a database.
The old "hits" statistics that everyone makes fun of counts the number of files downloaded from the web server. This is bad for two reasons:
- One web page includes lots of files (images, etc.) so your numbers are unrealistically multiplied.
- Lots of computers download lots of web pages (e.g. Google downloading your pages to find keywords) but that has nothing to do with real people visiting your website.
Note:
- If a visitor has Javascript disabled they're not likely to download the Javascript so their visit will not be recorded.
- Robots.txt marks the Javascript as disallowed so computers (e.g. Google and search engine spiders) should not download it and artificially inflate the statistics.
- The Javascript is at the bottom of the page, so if someone visits your website, and then clicks their back button very quickly (which does happen) then it's likely that the Javascript won't be downloaded and their visit won't be recorded. This is a good thing (it means that the Page Views we report are quality Page Views) but it's something to bear in mind when comparing statistics with other websites.
What does Page Views mean?
When one person visits several pages on a website each visit is counted as one Page View.
The following example is counted as 3 Page Views (even though they only look at 2 different pages):
- User visits Home page: http://www.example.com/
- User clicks About Us: http://www.example.com/about-us.html
- User changes their mind and clicks Home again: http://www.example.com/
What does Unique IP's mean?
Every computer connected to the Internet has its own IP Address. Unique IP's counts how many different IP Addresses have visited your website. This will give you an indication of how many different people use your website.
The following example is counted as 2 Unique IP's even though the users view 4 different pages:
- User visits the Home page: http://www.example.com/
- User clicks About Us: http://www.example.com/about-us.html
- User changes their mind and clicks Home again: http://www.example.com/
- Another user from a different company visits the Home page: http://www.example.com/
Note:
- Commercial offices tend to share one internet connection between everyone. Office PC's have their own IP Address, but it will be private (so it's not really part of the Internet). All the office PC's connect to one server that will surf the web on behalf of the office PC.
- Everyone in one office will have one IP Address so the Unique IP's will be artificially low.
- This makes it easy to setup IP Authentication for offices
- This is like the different between phone numbers and PABX extensions.
- Universities to have large pools of Internet IP Addresses. Every PC can have its own IP Address and connect directly to the internet.
- Unique IP's will be a good indication of "real people".
- This makes it harder to setup IP Authentication for Universities (it's complicated or all or nothing).
- If one person has a strange internet connection (e.g. wireless broadband that keeps dropping out) or several PC's the Unique IP's might be artificially high. This will be a small effect.
How often are the statistics updated?
The statistics are gathered continuously but they are only updated every 5 minutes. This might change in future if the reports become more complicated.
