Visitor

Visitor tells you that how many unique visitors have visited the website. Unique visitors rule out hits that have come from search engine robots or proxy servers. This prevents the visitor numbers from being exaggerated.

The visitor count is primarily based on cookies, which the Snoobi software installs into the Internet browser(s) of the visitors. With these cookies, it is possible to identify those visitors that have made prior visits to the site (within the chosen interval in the report) and are now returning to the site. A secondary method of visitor recognition is based on IP addresses, browser information and the combination thereof. This secondary method is used in cases where the visitors has disabled cookies from his/her browser.

Using IP addresses only is not reliable enough because IP addresses are like houses: many people can share the same house and the same address. Cookie-based tracking is therefore more accurate, but cookies are still limited to one computer or browser. If, say a laptop is used in addition to the primary computer, will both produce their separate cookies and visitors. In similar fashion, if several people use the same computer to browse the Internet, they will all be considered as one visitor.

If a visitor removes the cookie that Snoobi has saved onto their browser, the visitor be counted as a new visitor as opposed to a returning visitor on their next visit. Visitor numbers may also become distorted by visits from the company’s own employees, especially if the company website is also the default home page on company computers. To counter this, the company IP address can be filtered out of the report.

By keeping track of total the number of visitors the website receives, it is possible to monitor traffic fluctuations caused by marketing and advertisement campaigns. But what about the quality of the visitors?

Visit

Visit is a more technical term and directly connected to the length of the browser session. The duration of a Snoobi session is 30 minutes. This means the session is valid 30 minutes even if the browser has been closed in between page views.

If the visitor makes no new page views to the site for 30 minutes, the visit ends. If a particular visitor returns to the website after this 30 minute window has passed, he will be counted as a returning visitor.

The maximum length of a visit is 12 hours. If a visitor continues surfing after this, the exceeding page views will form a new visit.

A single user may have multiple visits during a day, hour or other time frame. However, the proportion of passive surfing cannot be determined from the length of the visit (i.e. the user may have had the window opened up in the background while he was doing something else).

Image 1. The difference between a visitor and a visit

Page view

Page view refers to the opening of a single page in the user's Internet browser. Every link within the website, that is clicked by the visitor, registers as a page view. Pressing refresh will also result in a page view.  

Page views / visit

Page views / visit is an indicator of the quality of the visitors. Plain total number of visitors does not reveal all the necessary information about the visitors, especially in terms of quality. Was the site relevant for the needs of the visitor? What is the proportion of visitors who leave the site after a click or two, because the content of the site was not what they were looking for?

Page views / visit tells an average, which can be used to measure how effectively the primary target group is able to find the site. However, the absolute value of this category has to be put in perspective with the size of the site, in order to gain meaningful results.

Generally speaking, low page views / visit means that the visitors have not been satisfied with the content of the site, and as a result have left the site relatively quickly. Alternatively, a low page views/ visit count  could mean that the design of the page is so clear that visitors immediately find what they have been looking for.

High page views / visit is often a sign of quality visitors coming to the site. These visitors have probably found that the content of the site is relevant and useful. A large proportion of the visitors have probably been browsing the site extensively and with genuine interest. Again, it could also be speculated that a high page views / visit could also be the result of poor site design, resulting in needlessly long endeavors to find what one is looking for.

Entries or Entry methods

The Entry Methods reports only enlist the visits, which have begun from the selected page or in the case of sections, a page belonging to that section. If the selected page or directory has not been the first page to which the visitor has arrived, the visit will not be listed in Entries.

Pages: Entries reveals if it is possible to enter a certain website through a search engine, and if so, then by using which search words. If the there are important, key words missing from the search term list, then website optimization could be considered in order to improve the site's visibility within search engines. The report's search terms will help you determine which search terms need a lift.

Visitors by country: Entries reveal the differences between the network channels of different countries. For example: in which countries is the search engine A better than the search engine B, in terms of hits to the company website.

Saving a spreadsheet or PDF

Every graph-free headline in the report is also available in Excel and CSV file formats. These spreadsheets can be used as basis to create extra material or graphs for company presentations. These files can also be sent to members of the company personnel or company partners, in case that they need the information from a certain portion of the report. For example, a spreadsheet of the Visitors by Organization can be forwarded to the sales team and they in turn can start contacting the companies listed.

The selected interval affects the content of the the Excel file. If your objective is to save and archive all your tracking history, the "all time" interval must first be chosen. Tables, however, do not include any sortings made to the report, nor any pictures that might be on the report.

In addition, a pdf file is available of the main report.

To get a PDF document of any of the other sub pages or specific panels, use the e-mail reporting feature. You can add almost any panel to an e-mail report and receive weekly PDFs of its results.

Time interval

Interval affects every aspect of the report, since the content on the report is built up based based on the selected time frame. The interval is changeable from the beginning of the report. Changes to the interval can be made either by selecting a pre-defined interval (day, week, fortnight, month or the entire time of operation of the Snoobi report) or by iserting the desired dates manually. If some link seems to be missing or the visitor numbers are suspiciously low, it is worth checking whether the interval is long enough to register relevant changes or not.