Web analytics

Web analytics, or web site statistics, are now considered an integral part of commercial web site success. Many different vendors provide many different web analytic solutions, each with it's own advantages and disadvantages.

A brief history of Web Analytics

Precursor Phase: Web Server Integration

Prior to log file analysis, some web analytics products integrated directly into the web server, like IIS Assistant for Microsoft IIS.

First Phase: Web Server Log Analysis

In the early 90's, web site statistics consisted primarily of counting the number of client requests made to the web server. This was a reasonable method initially, since each web site often consisted of a single HTML file. However, with the introduction of images in HTML, and web sites that spanned multiple HTML files, this count became less useful.

Two units of measure were introduced in the mid 90's to gauge more accurately the amount of human activity on web servers. These were 'Page Views' and 'Visits' or 'Sessions'. The 'Page View' was defined as a request made to the web server for a specific type of file - usually ".htm" or ".html", while a 'Visit' generally was defined as a series of requests from a uniquely identified client that expired after a certain amount of inactivity. The Page Views and Visits are still commonly displayed metrics, but their definitions have been modified with new technology.

The emergence of search engine spiders and robots in the late 90's, along with caching proxies (especially AOLs caching proxies) and dynamically assigned IP addresses for large ISPs introduced new challenges to the industry. Log analyzers responded by tracking visits by cookies, creating reports that tried to filter spider activity from human activity.

Log file analysis is still a valid measure of server activity in the modern web, but tends not to claim "Unique" or "Repeat" visitors, and generally should avoid presenting the activity reports as being a record of human activity.

Second Phase: Page Tagging / Web Bugs

In the mid 90's, Web Counters were commonly seen - these were an link to a remote image or script included in the HTML of a web page that showed the number of visits to the site from a specific date. In the late 90's this concept evolved to no longer include a visible image - the modern script (generally JavaScript) makes a coded request for a resource (usually a 1x1 transparent GIF) from a remote server. These requests are processed and comprehensive statistics are generated.