web visitors?

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley A. Gorodenski" <stanlep at extremezone.com>
Cc: "Leps-l" <Leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 9:56 PM
Subject: Re: web visitors?


> The counter increasing when you go from some place in the web site back
> to the home page could still remotely be caused by someone else hitting
> the web site between the time it took you to go to and from that part of
> the web site back to the home page.  You might do this test ten times
> and it could still be possible that, by a remote chance, there were 10
> valid visitors.  You should conduct your test a few thousand times
> (maybe even more than that - the more the better) so that you can make
> some kind of probabilistic statement of the web site not accurately
> reflecting visitors.  Something like, the probability of getting 10,000
> visitors when 10,000 transactions in the web site were made, and when on
> average there are only x number of hits per day is .000000000001.  Of
> course, that would not prove anything.  There still could have been, by
> a very very remote chance, 10,000 valid visitors when you conducted your
> test 10,000 times.
>

This is a very good point and I am glad it was made.  In my brief post the
purpose of my visiting a site and leaving and then going back a few minutes
later was my method of 'testing" a visit frequency.  If one goes to a site
and you are the 44th visit and you go back the next day and you are the
45th you know no one has been there  since your last visit. If one waits
another day and now you are the 46th  etc.   My visit was a - - - 40 by the
time I left the site it was a 44 - the exact number of clicks I made to
open new pages (4).  I then did an interval test several minutes apart and
I was the only one knocking up the numbers.  Also on this particular site,
passing my cursor over the meter brought up a "hits meter" pop up. Yet to
the side the caption read "you are the ____ visitor."    There was no doubt
that at this particular site hits were being presented as visits.   Home
made sites are very apt to innocently confuse hits and visits.  However, an
organizational or more in depth "professional" type individual site is more
apt to be doing this on purpose to make it look like they are getting a lot
more traffic than they are.  This (traffic) also comes into play with adds
on sites.

The main reason we have the TILS "counts" posted manually once a day is
because we detest the adds that so frequently (and unwantedly)
automatically pop up on so many counters.   That is why 'they" supply the
counters for free -- you have to take their adds that come with them.  I
don't like spam and don't like to be bombarded with it when I visit any
site.  Then when you leave you have another dozen windows you have to click
out of to clear the screen.  And of course all these junk adds add cookies
to you files -- which I have to take the time to delete.  I am sick of - Do
you want to  gamble? Do you want a mini spy camera? Do you want to date
(sic porno)? etc. etc. etc. etc.
Ron


 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl