Web traffic
Encyclopedia
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic
. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends, such as one specific page being viewed mostly by people in a particular country. There are many ways to monitor this traffic and the gathered data is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth
— not all web traffic is welcome.
Some companies offer advertising schemes that, in return for increased web traffic (visitors), pay for screen space on the site. Sites also often aim to increase their web traffic through inclusion on search engine
s and through search engine optimization
.
is the measurement of the behavior of visitors to a website. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives of Internet marketing
initiatives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase. Notable vendors of web analytics software and services include Webtrends
, Coremetrics
, Omniture
, and Google Analytics
.
Web traffic is measured to see the popularity of web sites and individual pages or sections within a site.
Web traffic can be analyzed by viewing the traffic statistics found in the web server log file, an automatically generated list of all the pages served. A hit is generated when any file is served. The page itself is considered a file, but images are also files, thus a page with 5 images could generate 6 hits (the 5 images and the page itself). A page view is generated when a visitor requests any page within the web site – a visitor will always generate at least one page view (the main page) but could generate many more.
Tracking applications external to the web site can record traffic by inserting a small piece of HTML
code in every page of the web site.
Web traffic is also sometimes measured by packet sniffing
and thus gaining random samples of traffic data from which to extrapolate information about web traffic as a whole across total Internet
usage.
The following types of information are often collated when monitoring web traffic:
Web sites like Alexa Internet
produce traffic rankings and statistics based on those people who access the sites while using the Alexa toolbar. The difficulty with this is that it's not looking at the complete traffic picture for a site. Large sites usually hire the services of companies like Nielsen NetRatings, but their reports are available only by subscription.
Some site administrators have chosen to block their page to specific traffic, such as by geographic location. The re-election campaign
site for U.S.
President
George W. Bush
(GeorgeWBush.com) was blocked to all internet
users outside of the U.S. on 25 October 2004 after a reported attack on the site.
It is also possible to limit access to a web server both based on the number of connections and by the bandwidth expended by each connection. On Apache HTTP server
s, this is accomplished by the limitipconn module and others.
, including bulk e-mail, pop-up ads, and in-page advertisements. Web traffic can also be increased by purchasing non-internet based advertising.
If a web page is not listed in the first pages of any search, the odds of someone finding it diminishes greatly (especially if there is other competition on the first page). Very few people go past the first page, and the percentage that go to subsequent pages is substantially lower. Consequently, getting proper placement on search engines is as important as the web site itself.
, search engine
s, guides (such as yellow pages and restaurant guides), and award sites.
In most cases the best way to increase web traffic is to register it with the major search engines. Just registering does not guarantee traffic, as search engines work by "crawling" registered web sites. These crawling programs (crawlers) are also known as "spiders" or "robots". Crawlers start at the registered home page, and usually follow the hyperlinks it finds, to get to pages inside the web site (internal links). Crawlers start gathering information about those pages and storing it and indexing it in the search engine database. In every case, they index the page URL
and the page title. In most cases they also index the web page header (meta tag) and a certain amount of the text of the page. Then, when a search engine user looks for a particular word or phrase, the search engine looks into the database and produces the results, usually sorted by relevance according to the search engine algorithms.
Usually, the top organic result gets most of the clicks from web users. According to some studies , the top result gets between 5% and 10% of the clicks. Each subsequent result gets between 30% and 60% of the clicks of the previous one. This indicates that it is important to appear in the top results. There are some companies which specialize in search engine marketing. However, it is becoming common for webmasters to get approached by "boiler-room" companies with no real knowledge of how to get results. As opposed to pay-per-click, search engine marketing is usually paid monthly or annually, and most search engine companies cannot promise specific results for what is paid to them.
Because of the huge amount of information available on the web, crawlers might take days, weeks or months to complete review and index all the pages they find. Google, for example, as of the end of 2004 had indexed over eight billion pages. Even having hundreds or thousands of servers working on the spidering of pages, a complete reindexing takes its time. That is why some pages recently updated in certain web sites are not immediately found when doing searches on search engines.
s (DoS attacks) have forced web sites to close after a malicious attack, flooding the site with more requests than it could cope with. Viruses
have also been used to co-ordinate large scale distributed denial-of-service attacks.
, a quickly propagating email
, or a link from a popular site may cause such a boost in visitors (sometimes called Slashdot effect
)
Internet traffic
-Historical Internet Traffic Growth:Because of the distributed nature of the Internet, there is no single point of measurement for total Internet traffic...
. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends, such as one specific page being viewed mostly by people in a particular country. There are many ways to monitor this traffic and the gathered data is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
— not all web traffic is welcome.
Some companies offer advertising schemes that, in return for increased web traffic (visitors), pay for screen space on the site. Sites also often aim to increase their web traffic through inclusion on search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
s and through search engine optimization
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
.
Analyzing web traffic
Web analyticsWeb analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage....
is the measurement of the behavior of visitors to a website. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives of Internet marketing
Internet marketing
Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, online marketing, search marketing or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing of products or services over the Internet...
initiatives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase. Notable vendors of web analytics software and services include Webtrends
WebTrends
Webtrends is a private company headquartered in Portland, Oregon, United States. It provides web analytics and other software solutions related to marketing intelligence...
, Coremetrics
IBM WebSphere Commerce
IBM WebSphere Commerce is a software platform framework for e-commerce, including marketing, sales, customer and order processing functionality in a tailorable, integrated package...
, Omniture
Omniture
Omniture is an online marketing and web analytics business unit owned by Adobe Systems. The Omniture Business Unit is based in Orem, Utah, with offices worldwide. It serves customers in 75 countries worldwide.- History :...
, and Google Analytics
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. The product is aimed at marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew. It is the most widely used website...
.
Measuring web traffic
Web traffic can be analyzed by viewing the traffic statistics found in the web server log file, an automatically generated list of all the pages served. A hit is generated when any file is served. The page itself is considered a file, but images are also files, thus a page with 5 images could generate 6 hits (the 5 images and the page itself). A page view is generated when a visitor requests any page within the web site – a visitor will always generate at least one page view (the main page) but could generate many more.
Tracking applications external to the web site can record traffic by inserting a small piece of HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
code in every page of the web site.
Web traffic is also sometimes measured by packet sniffing
Packet sniffer
A packet analyzer is a computer program or a piece of computer hardware that can intercept and log traffic passing over a digital network or part of a network...
and thus gaining random samples of traffic data from which to extrapolate information about web traffic as a whole across total Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
usage.
The following types of information are often collated when monitoring web traffic:
- The number of visitors.
- The average number of page views per visitor – a high number would indicate that the average visitors go deep inside the site, possibly because they like it or find it useful.
- Average visit duration – the total length of a user's visit. As a rule the more time they spend the more they're interested in your company and are more prone to contact.
- Average page duration – how long a page is viewed for. The more pages viewed, the better it is for your company.
- Domain classes – all levels of the IP Addressing information required to deliver Webpages and content.
- Busy times – the most popular viewing time of the site would show when would be the best time to do promotional campaigns and when would be the most ideal to perform maintenance
- Most requested pages – the most popular pages
- Most requested entry pages – the entry page is the first page viewed by a visitor and shows which are the pages most attracting visitors
- Most requested exit pages – the most requested exit pages could help find bad pages, broken links or the exit pages may have a popular external link
- Top paths – a path is the sequence of pages viewed by visitors from entry to exit, with the top paths identifying the way most customers go through the site
- Referrers; The host can track the (apparent) source of the linksHyperlinkIn computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
and determine which sites are generating the most traffic for a particular page.
Web sites like Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
produce traffic rankings and statistics based on those people who access the sites while using the Alexa toolbar. The difficulty with this is that it's not looking at the complete traffic picture for a site. Large sites usually hire the services of companies like Nielsen NetRatings, but their reports are available only by subscription.
Controlling web traffic
The amount of traffic seen by a web site is a measure of its popularity. By analysing the statistics of visitors it is possible to see shortcomings of the site and look to improve those areas. It is also possible to increase (or, in some cases decrease) the popularity of a site and the number of people that visit it.Limiting access
It is sometimes important to protect some parts of a site by password, allowing only authorized people to visit particular sections or pages.Some site administrators have chosen to block their page to specific traffic, such as by geographic location. The re-election campaign
Political campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, wherein representatives are chosen or referendums are decided...
site for U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
(GeorgeWBush.com) was blocked to all internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
users outside of the U.S. on 25 October 2004 after a reported attack on the site.
It is also possible to limit access to a web server both based on the number of connections and by the bandwidth expended by each connection. On Apache HTTP server
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
s, this is accomplished by the limitipconn module and others.
Increase web site traffic
Web traffic can be increased by placement of a site in search engines and purchase of advertisingAdvertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, including bulk e-mail, pop-up ads, and in-page advertisements. Web traffic can also be increased by purchasing non-internet based advertising.
If a web page is not listed in the first pages of any search, the odds of someone finding it diminishes greatly (especially if there is other competition on the first page). Very few people go past the first page, and the percentage that go to subsequent pages is substantially lower. Consequently, getting proper placement on search engines is as important as the web site itself.
Organic traffic
Web traffic which comes from unpaid listing at search engines or directories is commonly known as "organic" traffic. Organic traffic can be generated or increased by including the web site in directoriesWeb directory
A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links....
, search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
s, guides (such as yellow pages and restaurant guides), and award sites.
In most cases the best way to increase web traffic is to register it with the major search engines. Just registering does not guarantee traffic, as search engines work by "crawling" registered web sites. These crawling programs (crawlers) are also known as "spiders" or "robots". Crawlers start at the registered home page, and usually follow the hyperlinks it finds, to get to pages inside the web site (internal links). Crawlers start gathering information about those pages and storing it and indexing it in the search engine database. In every case, they index the page URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
and the page title. In most cases they also index the web page header (meta tag) and a certain amount of the text of the page. Then, when a search engine user looks for a particular word or phrase, the search engine looks into the database and produces the results, usually sorted by relevance according to the search engine algorithms.
Usually, the top organic result gets most of the clicks from web users. According to some studies , the top result gets between 5% and 10% of the clicks. Each subsequent result gets between 30% and 60% of the clicks of the previous one. This indicates that it is important to appear in the top results. There are some companies which specialize in search engine marketing. However, it is becoming common for webmasters to get approached by "boiler-room" companies with no real knowledge of how to get results. As opposed to pay-per-click, search engine marketing is usually paid monthly or annually, and most search engine companies cannot promise specific results for what is paid to them.
Because of the huge amount of information available on the web, crawlers might take days, weeks or months to complete review and index all the pages they find. Google, for example, as of the end of 2004 had indexed over eight billion pages. Even having hundreds or thousands of servers working on the spidering of pages, a complete reindexing takes its time. That is why some pages recently updated in certain web sites are not immediately found when doing searches on search engines.
Traffic overload
Too much web traffic can dramatically slow down or even prevent all access to a web site. This is caused by more file requests going to the server than it can handle and may be an intentional attack on the site or simply caused by over-popularity. Large scale web sites with numerous servers can often cope with the traffic required and it is more likely that smaller services are affected by traffic overload. Sudden traffic load may also hang your server or may result in shutdown of your services.Denial of service attacks
Denial-of-service attackDenial-of-service attack
A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
s (DoS attacks) have forced web sites to close after a malicious attack, flooding the site with more requests than it could cope with. Viruses
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
have also been used to co-ordinate large scale distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Sudden popularity
A sudden burst of publicity may accidentally cause a web traffic overload. A news item in the mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, a quickly propagating email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, or a link from a popular site may cause such a boost in visitors (sometimes called Slashdot effect
Slashdot effect
The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller site, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily close. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic that results from...
)