Tracking Options And Info

There are many options when it comes to website tracking. 90% of all hosting providers offer free tracking of some sort or offer tracking for a small monthly fee. Below is a list of some of those tracking programs along with some programs that can be installed by the owner of your site.

It is important to pay close attention to the top referring URLs versus the top referring Sites. URL's are the "specific defined pages" of a specific site".

For instance, Yahoo! is defined as a site. Within Yahoo!, every page where your company is found will have a specific URL. So, if a user searches your company by name, the page that provides the result will be one specific URL. If a user searches your company by product, the page that provided the result will be a different specific URL; and if a user searches your company by a different product search, the page that provides that result will be yet a different specific URL. By focusing on URLs, you can separate the users that are searching by company name, and concentrate on the group that searches by different product categories that will help focus on what URLs are providing you the traffic and will provide you with the foundation for your advertising decision.

Also, it is important to understand the "no referrer" statistic (usually top ranked). These are users (or visits) that in many cases already have a close working relationship with your company. These statistics normally result from a user:
* Having your site book marked
* Having your site in their dropdown address bar
* Having set their browser home page to your site
* Having entered your website into their address bar
* Having clicked on links contained in any document (usually e-mail)

In many cases, since these users are usually closely associated with your company, they should be discounted when evaluating prospects coming from your product search URLs.

You will see that there are many visits to your home page and your company's other URLs which are generated from the user visiting multiple pages of your site. A larger amount of these visits are derived from the user traveling through your Website since each specific page visited is counted. Also, the users that come in through the "non-referring site" or through another URL such as a job page are counted again if these users go to the home page and that is why your index page has so many visits. It is important to focus on the other referring URLs that represent new flows of traffic into your site.