

Counting Pageviews: 1, 2, 8, 15 - buckpost
http://markevanstech.com/2007/10/22/counting-pageviews-1-2-8-15/

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joeguilmette
the comments on that page seem to be more useful than article itself.

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I'm a web analyst for a major financial services firm. Using state-of-the-art
software, provided by the leading web analytics vendor, I monitor traffic
flows through several web sites maintained by my company. My goal is to study
the online experience, in order to improve it, within the context of our
business model and overall company strategies. This is done using quantitative
(web analytics) and qualitative analysis (market research, usability testing,
etc.).

I've been a web analyst since the late 1990's, and this article seems almost
as dated. Web analytics, as a discipline, has evolved several times over,
since web server log files were first used to track traffic, in the
mid-1990's. The latest technology, commonly called "page tagging," is
infinitely more accurate, and is customizable for capturing true business
metrics.

Further, there is a Web Analytics Association who is educating organizations
in, lobbying for, and standardizing the collection and use of key performance
indicators for the web. The most basic metrics are the Unique User, the Visit,
and the Page View. No one in this growing industry disputes this, and the data
collection methodologies used by the leading web analytics vendors, varies
slightly, if at all. The disparities between the vendors' products lie mainly
in their delivery methods.

The web world, especially advertisers and those who directly rely on web sites
for revenue, would all best be served if they abandoned the arbitrary standard
set by the NetRatings and ComScores of the world. Their rating (and business)
models are sorely outdated, and do not meet the measurement demands of the
"web 2.0," world.

