On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Gavin McDonald <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Rob Weir [mailto:[email protected]] >> Sent: Saturday, 13 August 2011 8:31 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: [WWW] Web analytics >> > <snip> >> >> Any web analytics package is going to track IP address and store a cookie. >> That is how it knows what country you are from and whether you are a new >> or a returning user. >> > > These days cookies are not reliable enough for analytics to produce accurate > data. > > Lots of users these days have Anti-Virus programs running, Windows has it > build in > these days. These programs are trained to consider cookies as low risk but at > the > same time allow the user to delete cookies. > > Personally, I'll be treated as a new visitor to the site every week as far as > analytics > is concerned, as that is how often I clean out my cookies. >
And that's fine. There will always be a level of background noise in the data. Other factors include users who share machines, or users that have multiple machines. Because of that we shouldn't put much credence in absolute numbers. The interesting thing is the change in numbers, the variation from the baseline. For example, imagine we see a sudden spike in new visitors (or what the analytic thinks are new users). When that happens, is certainly possible that this was just caused by a large number of repeat visitors at the same time suddenly installing anti-virus that cleans out their cookies on a weekly basis. That is not impossible. But the more likely explanation is that we actually did have a spike in new visitors. >From marketing perspective we can use this kind of info to gauge the effectiveness of different outreach techniques. > Gav... > > >
