[thelist] Analog User Session Tracking

Martin martin at members.evolt.org
Sun Jun 24 04:09:37 CDT 2001


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Beau Hartshorne wrote on 23/6/01 5:36 pm

>So what meaning has anyone every got out of all those numbers cranked out
>by analog (page requests, requests, etc.)? Is page requests the most
>informative result?

Not really.

With log files and simple analysis, you're in the same place as the
KGB were. They had data on every tiny little aspect of people's lives.
But they were drowning in it, and it was almost impossible to analyse
what *use* it all was.

The thing about page requests is what are you going to *do* with the
information? There's no point in collecting and analysing data if it's
not going to affect your site. And there will be pages you *really*
don't care about. And others which are are really needed by users,
just not very often.

Howabout this for an approach:
Work out what really matter. What activity tells you something 
*useful* about your users? Maybe its registrations. Maybe it's
progress from looking at a product to buying it. Maybe it's registered
users using a 'tell a friend' feature (so you can work out who's a
key nexus of people).

Once you've worked out what's important, log *only that*. Your
analysis will be much easier, and you'll get more useful information
out at the end which will help steer your business decisions.

If it's any comfort, some of the world's largest companies struggle
to get their heads around this too, maybe because WebTrends et
al have oversold themselves.

Cheers
Martin

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       martin at members.evolt.org      snailmail: 30 Shandon Place
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