[thelist] Basic Traffic tracking question

[webmaster at menouno.com]

On 2 May 2001, at 11:03, Green, Janet wrote about [thelist] Basic 
Traffic tracking question: 

> Basic traffic question - our tracking software, Webtrends, shows that
> a particular "number" such as 234.344.44.22, visited our site at a
> certain day and time 
> [...] 
> can
> Webtrends display these numbers as something more useful than a number
> (such as an ISP, for example, which might lead us to the user's
> geographic location) - or are we stuck with numbers? 

not all IPs can be easily resolved, but with a lot of work I manage 
to get *no unresolved IPs* for small websites (around 15,000 pages 
per month net, without spiders requests). 

> I've stalled him
> for now by saying that I would go and research Webtrends to see if I
> can better answer his questions

if you got time, I would suggest other sources. WebTrends and similar 
commercial programs tend to produce the kind of results that 
marketers want - not always reliable. 

My tool is Analog, www.analog.cx 

Some useful readings: 

How the Web Works: http://www.analog.cx/docs/webworks.html 

Interpreting WWW Statistics http://www.ario.ch/etc/webstats.html 

Why web usage statistics are (worse than) meaningless 
http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/docs/stats/ 

Distributions of Surfers’ Paths through the WWW: (wrap) 
http://www.parc.xerox.com/istl/projects/uir/pubs/pdf/UIR-R-1999-02-
Pirolli-WebJournal-Paths.pdf 


HTH 


ciao 


Massimo