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more stats questions -- numbers don't seem to add up
 
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qureus
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:58 pm    Post subject: more stats questions -- numbers don't seem to add up Reply with quote

Hi John,

I'd like to understand BlogHarbor stats better. For example, I looked at yesterday's hourly stats and noticed that in some hours, I had more visitors than page views. Can you explain how this would happen? I'm wondering if BlogHarbor registers as a hit if my blog simply shows up on a search engine page from a key word search.

Also, how does BlogHarbor handle RSS feeds? Does it count as a hit if an aggregator pings my site? Or does BlogHarbor only count as a hit when a reader clicks on an article?

Part of why I'm also asking is because I've been testing with StatsCounter and their results for my blog are drastically different than BlogHarbors.

Thanks!

Qureus
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john
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:36 pm    Post subject: Re: more stats questions -- numbers don't seem to add up Reply with quote

I looked at yesterday's hourly stats and noticed that in some hours, I had more visitors than page views. Can you explain how this would happen?

A visit would be registered if a file was downloaded or an image viewed, but a page view would not be added. If someone linked to an image on your site, and displayed your image on their site, you would see a visit (a request for a document of some type) but not a page view (the user did not access an HTML or XML page).

I looked at your stats and they are close enough that it does not seem to be an issue. I am sure that I have said this before on this forum, but stats analysis is as much art as science. We are examining log files to try to turn raw and often meaningless information into something useful, a picture of what happened on your site. We often have to guess at what something in a log file means or make inferences, so there will always be a certain fuzziness inherent in web stats.

I'm wondering if BlogHarbor registers as a hit if my blog simply shows up on a search engine page from a key word search.

No access is registered as a result of appearing in a web search, only if the user visits your site.

Also, how does BlogHarbor handle RSS feeds?

Very well, thank you. Wink Seriously, that's what's being referred to in the stats as XML requests.

Does it count as a hit if an aggregator pings my site?

No.

Or does BlogHarbor only count as a hit when a reader clicks on an article?

Correct.

Part of why I'm also asking is because I've been testing with StatsCounter and their results for my blog are drastically different than BlogHarbors.

Third party stats will always be drastically different for a couple of reasons. First, they would use a different methodology for analyzing your traffic. Secondly, and more importantly, they would know nothing about any access to your RSS feed, downloadable files, scripts or CSS files, photos or images. The only thing they can know about is access to an HTML page, and that is only a part of what our stats reflect.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi John,

Thanks for the info, I'm just about "there" in terms of understanding. As you can see, I'm a bulldog until I do get it. Thanks for your patience.

Need another couple of clarifications....

As part of an answer to this question...
I looked at yesterday's hourly stats and noticed that in some hours, I had more visitors than page views. Can you explain how this would happen?


You wrote...
If someone linked to an image on your site, and displayed your image on their site, you would see a visit (a request for a document of some type) but not a page view (the user did not access an HTML or XML page).


Just checking...So if, say, you were to link to one of my articles in your blog, then a reader comes along and reads your article, does that register as a visit on my blog just because of the link?

Another question (and I apologize if I've already asked this one)...

I've added a bunch of additional web pages in the blog. Do they get counted in the stats too? Or is it only articles and images?

Thanks!
Q
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john
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just checking...So if, say, you were to link to one of my articles in your blog, then a reader comes along and reads your article, does that register as a visit on my blog just because of the link?

Only if the reader clicks on the link on my site and follows it to your web site.

I've added a bunch of additional web pages in the blog. Do they get counted in the stats too?

Yes, they do.
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qureus
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:03 am    Post subject: 'nuther question on stats and add'l pages Reply with quote

Hi John,

I just double-checked my stats, looking for hits on my additional web pages. I don't see anything in the stats, though. I know that there's got to be at least a few hits on all of my additional pages -- from me if no one else! Because I check the links whenever I add a new page.

Am I overlooking something I need to do?

Qureus
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john
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:38 pm    Post subject: Re: 'nuther question on stats and add'l pages Reply with quote

You're right, the Web Pages stats are not currently broken down separately. We'll see if we can get this added down the road.
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qureus
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:49 am    Post subject: yet another stats question Reply with quote

Hi John,

Sorry to keep harping on stats questions, but everytime I think I get it, I realize I probably don't. I'm asking because I'm trying to get my hands around a general and relatively easy way to scan how many "legit" versus junk visitors I'm getting to my site so I can better gage its popularity.

Okay, so here's the background on my question. Yesterday, I counted up that I had 109 visitors more than I had page requests (wherever I had more visitors than requests for a given hour, I summed the cumulative difference).

So here's my question. Is it reasonable to assume those 109 visitors include many of the junk visitors to my site (like texas hold em), because they didn't actually request to see any pages?

Thanks for your continued help.

Q
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john
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:03 pm    Post subject: Re: yet another stats question Reply with quote

I looked at your site stats, and I think the answer comes down to the same issue I noted in my initial response on this thread:

A visit would be registered if a file was downloaded or an image viewed, but a page view would not be added. If someone linked to an image on your site, and displayed your image on their site, you would see a visit (a request for a document of some type) but not a page view (the user did not access an HTML or XML page).

One thing I see in your stats is that you have some hits out of a Google cache... I am not sure why people would rather view your site from Google's cache instead of coming straight to your site, but there it is... When you look at a website from Google's cache, the HTML loads from Google and the images load from your site. So the image requests trigger a referer (Google), a 'Distinct host served' (the user who viewed the page from Google's cache), but not any HTML or XML requests.

Second, it seems like at least one page on the net loads an image located on your site. So when readers visit that page, the image loads from your site and not theirs. This is sometimes referred to as hotlinking or bandwidth theft, since your bandwidth is being consumed when users visit their site...

Read more about this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotlinking

in the Linking section. I won't mention the site that is doing this to you here, I'll send that info to you privately...

Third, there is one other scenario which would cause 'Distinct hosts served' to be higher than page views: web-based RSS aggregators might fetch one copy of your RSS feed and then display it to many readers. Your images are in that RSS feed, and loaded from your blog. So your blog sees the hits to your images and not the hits to your HTML or XML files. Again the result is an increase in 'Distinct hosts served' with no change to your page views.
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qureus
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:21 am    Post subject: now i'm getting it and more on hotlinks Reply with quote

Hi John,

Thanks for your last explanation. Things are making soooo much more sense.

I got your email about hotlinking and it gives me mixed feelings. One one hand, I guess it's a plus that some folks out there are providing a gateway to my site. On the other hand, I'm paying the bandwidth to help make their site "better" (I'm thinking of the link you sent me).

Also, what do sites like Technorati do? Are they hotlinking?

Is there a way on our end to prevent hotlinking? Does BlogHarbor have any tools on the development horizon that would allow us to diagnose for ourselves who is hotlinking? Or third-party products? It seems to me that a blogger might be okay with some hotlinks and not with others (for example, looking at the link you sent me, I see no value in Steve's site because of it's quality).

Thanks,
Q
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john
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:44 pm    Post subject: Re: now i'm getting it and more on hotlinks Reply with quote

Technorati doesn't display your site's HTML so, no, they are not hotlinking.

We don't have any tools to prevent this sort of thing, nor am I aware of any 'products' that can help. This is just a result of the way HTML works, and has worked, for a very long time.

One way to handle it if it does become a problem for you is to rename the image the 3rd party is hotlinking to (and to update your original post with the new URL). That way the remote site just gets a big X instead of the image that they linked to...
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