The Pleasures of Sharing Information

Server Stats - Analyzing Traffic To Your Site

Analyzing traffic to a site is a key factor in tweaking search
engine optimization and marketing campaigns. Determining how
people get to your site is critical. Surprisingly, few sites
take advantage of the data available on their servers.

Server Logs

Typically, there are two server tools available to you. Server
logs are on your server and analyze site activity. The log keeps
track of the files created on the server, the number of times
there is a request for the file, where the hit came from and the
exact phrase typed in by the person accessing the page of the
site. Every system is different, but these basic elements should
be included.

The second tool, a traffic analysis program, is pretty standard
for most hosting companies, but you may have to ask them to turn
it on. The programs analyze the raw data from your server and
convert it into fascinating charts, diagrams and statistics.
Most of the information is overkill. You have to be careful not
to get overwhelmed by numerous ways to look at the data. Try to
focus on the following information:

What sites are sending you visitors? What search engines are
sending you traffic? What keyword phrases are people using to
find your site? How often are major search engine indexing
robots visiting your site?

As you access the data, you are going to find some very
surprising things. Actually, you are probably going to be
stunned.

Initially, you are going to be amazed when you see which keyword
phrases that are sending traffic to your site. Many of the
keywords will not match your meta tags. Instead, they will be a
combination of various keywords on a particular page. This is
reflection of the fact that search engines mix and match your
keywords as they see fit. So, should you change your meta tags
to reflect the phrases shown in the data? No. The data you are
seeing typically reflects keywords with little competition.
Since you are already getting traffic from them, keep focusing
on your original goals.

In looking at your data, the second key piece of data is
identifying where the traffic is coming from. This data often
falls under the “referrer” heading. By reviewing the data, you
can see what search engines are producing data for you. If you
are running advertising on a site, you should also be able to
track the campaign.

The final area to analyze is the robot visit information.
Depending on the program, the robot information may appear under
“robots” or “user agents” headings. Robots are programs used by
search engines to index web sites on the net. In reviewing your
data, you should be able to determine how often the robots are
coming to your site. If at all possible, make sure you add new
content to your site before the next visit. The robots for the
top search engines are Yahoo - Slurp, Google - Googlebot, and
MSN - MSNbot.

In Closing

Analyzing the traffic to your site is a key element to marketing
your site. The more you know about your customers, the more you
can cater to their needs.

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