Website Statistics Q & A

Mary C. | 15 September 2004 |

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Website Statistics Q&A
Christine Burke

In this month’s tracker column, I’d like to share a question I was recently asked. This one should appeal especially to puzzle solvers, and to those detail-minded folks who really like to dig into their traffic results.

Q: I recently subscribed to Blizzard Tracker ROI Edition, but I left my old tracker (non-Blizzard) running for a month to compare results. The number of page views isn’t the same when comparing the two trackers. Why would that happen?

A: There are a number of possible reasons for this. You could do some detective work to figure out the exact causes, but I don’t think you need to be concerned. I will explain the most probable cause for the difference.

Both trackers use scripts that reside on each page of the site. As long as the script is intact on the page and is installed correctly, all page views will be tracked. Your old tracker was installed more than a year ago, and your site has surely changed a number of times since then. It’s a challenge for the webmaster to remember to put a script on every new page, and to maintain scripts on all of the pages that he changes. There may be a few new pages that are missing the older tracking script.

It’s likely that Blizzard Tracker is tracking more pages simply because it was installed more recently. I believe that your webmaster did a thorough installation without missing any pages. In addition, we specified that the tracker be installed on pages not on your own domain, such as the secure servers for your reservations and your gift certificates. If your old tracker wasn’t installed on those pages, that would also explain lower page views in that system.

If you are motivated to do an investigation, you can look at the report that lists page views on all of the different pages. Some pages may not show up on your old tracking system.

Here is an example of another possible, but less likely cause. In some rare cases, there is an accidental duplication of tracking scripts on a page, causing a page view to be counted twice. For example, this could happen if the script is installed in a footer file. You might suspect this problem if a particular page seems to have double the traffic that you would expect. Check with us or with your webmaster if you think you might have this problem on your site.