Web statistics
Administrators of live sites using the CMS web template can now opt in to receive web statistic reports on a monthly basis. Web stats are a useful way to guide the management and optimisation of your website. The reports are produced and generated using comScore: Digital Analytix (previously Sitestat).
New reports
The standard reports have recently been updated and, after an extended trial period, are now being rolled out to all those currently receiving reports. The new reports include:
- Unique browsers
The total number of unique browsers that visited your site. This essentially corresponds to what in the past would have been described as 'unique visitors'; though the term 'browser' is used to highlight the fact that the web stats software can only identify individual browsers; as opposed to 'real people'. Separate figures are provided for external and internal browser visits.
- Browsers per page within a specified directory
The top 25 pages on your site in the last month. This is the most conservative count; since an individual visit from a unique browser is counted only once per day. (This corresponds to 'Visits per page within your website' in the old reports). Again figures are provided for internal and external traffic.
- Top referrers to your website
Referrers are the sites from which a user has followed a link to your website. In many cases this will be a search engine; but may also include sites such as Wikipedia.
- Top search terms from external search engines
This shows the 'Search term' used on an external search engine (such as Google) to access your site (and includes the 'Entry page' the search result pointed to).
- Search queries entered on your site
This lists the search terms entered on your site search, including the page on which the search was performed. If you find the same searches being carried out repeatedly on a particular page this would indicate that a direct link to a relevant page should be added there. Note that on some sites the site search is not much used and the report may simply show "no data for the reporting period".
If you are a site administrator and you wish to receive these reports please contact us with a shared email address.
The reports are straightforward to interpret and some web publishers will not need any assistance in understanding them. However, if you feel you would benefit from some training, please contact us to arrange a brief session to run through them.
Any personal data captured by the reporting software is anonymised at source.
Legacy reports
The old reports are as follows:
- Visits per page within your website
- Visitors per page within your website
- Page views per page within your website