Anyware Google Analytics Reports Help
The Google Analytics reports provide a range of information that is broadly based on traffic to your website over a one month period.
In A Hurry?
To get the most from this report at a glance, be sure to look at the first few entries in these sections every month:
Most web stats reports tell you about the number of hits, rather than number of page views. The number of hits tells you how many objects have been viewed on a page, including the page itself. If a page has 5 images on it then one view of that page will register 6 hits, so report numbers tend to be inflated and confusing.
The Anyware Web Stats report filters out all the unneccessary info about hits and ONLY tells you about page views.
General Summary
The most useful number in this section is:
Successful requests
The number of times a page was successfully requested (usually by someone using Internet Explorer). This is the total number of pages viewed during the month - a good guide to how busy your web site is.
Other info is as follows - ignore these if you're in a hurry:
Average successful requests per day
Successful requests divided by the number of days in the month
Successful requests for pages
Successful requests actually includes requests for objects that are not html pages, such as downloadable files or the robots.txt file. We include these files because they help to show how busy your web site is.
Average successful requests for pages per day
Successful requests for pages divided by the number of days in the month.
Failed requests
How many times a page was requested and could not be shown. This is mostly people looking for pages that don't exist (for all sorts of reasons).
Distinct files requested
If every page of your web site has been visited this month then this is a count of the pages on your web site.
Distinct hosts served
This is roughly the number of different Internet Service Providers (like paradise or ihug) whose users have accessed your web site.
Unwanted logfile entries
This is all the rubbish we filter out so you don't have to read it. Usually much higher than page requests, this number shows the difference between page views and hits.
Data transferred
Successful requests multiplied by the size of each page (or download file) requested.
Average data transferred per day
Data transferred divided by the number of days in the month.
Weekly Report
Shows you how busy each week was this month.
Daily Summary
Shows you how busy each day was on average this month.
Domain Report
The location of each computer that requested a page from your web site.
This report is broken down by the last part of the domain names (.com, .nz or .au etc). This is a good indication of how many Kiwis, Aussies or Americans are looking at your web site.
Note that the following are search engine spiders: googlebot, inktomisearch, msnbot, and just about anything else that contains the word "bot".
Organisation Report
Same as the Domain Report, but sorted by highest number of requests.
Referrer Report
When someone clicks a link on another web site which takes them to your web site, this is known as a referral.
This report shows you the pages on other web sites that are generating a lot of your traffic.
Referring Site Report
A summary of the Referrer Report by domain name. Be sure to look at this every month - it gives you a good feel for where your traffic comes from.
Search Query Report
One of the most important reports, this counts the number of times someone types a particular keyword phrase into a search engine and then clicks the link to visit your web site.
Want to increase your traffic by hundreds of new visitors every month?
Then optimise your pages to attract traffic from search engines for specific keyword phrases that you identify in this report.
Status Code Report
Shows you a total count of all the statii for every page request. The great majority should be "OK". If not please call me - we may need to fix something.
For anything that's not "OK", see the Failure Report for the reasons why.
Failure Report
A list of requests for files that could not be shown successfully.
Mostly this is mistakes when people type a web address into their browser, or hackers looking for back doors into the web server.
Request Report
The "Request Report" shows you how many times each page on your web site was successfully viewed during the month.
If your site has more than one page, have a good look - this can tell you a lot about your website traffic and your business.
Keep an eye on this report every month and you can get a feel for which pages of your web site are the most popular.
This can indicate what people are looking for, and help you understand which of your products or services you should be promoting the hardest!
Notes
Search Engine Spiders
A search engine spider (or robot) is an automated program used by search engines like Google or Yahoo to scan the pages of your web site so they can build their giant indexes.
robots.txt file
This file is used to give instructions to search engine spiders. It tells the spider which pages it is allowed to visit.