How to determine how many users disable pop-ups?

[MrSpeed]

On our main page we have a pop-up (pop.asp) for breaking news.
We show the pop up everytime the main page (default.asp) is loaded.
We use webtrends. I hate using the pop-up but that's for another thread.

I thought it would be interesting to determine how many users have pop-ups disabled.

If you look at the stats for visits the number of times pop.asp is viewed is almost half of what default.asp is.
Somebody suggested that people leave the pop up blurred under the main window while they navigate the site, causing default.asp to be loaded more.

So then I said, "Why don't we compare the number of visits when default.asp is the entry page to the number of time pop.asp is displayed."

When I do this the ratio is 63% (pop.asp/default.asp)

So here are the questions:

1) What do you think the best way to determine how may people have pop-ups disabled is? (It is possible to disable pop-ups with javascript still turned on )

2) Anybody have current numbers?

3) Does webtrends count spiders as visitors?

Thanks,

[cfx211]

If you allow users the option to disable your popup then why don't you pass that as a value in the query string of the URL, something like?pop_up=n. Then you can count the total number of people on that page and the total number of people on that page where "?pop_up=n". That should give you your %.

If you are wondering about people who disable popups through their browser or some software then I don't know about that, but would like to hear if anyone does have an answer.

[MrSpeed]

If you are wondering about people who disable popups through their browser or some software then I don't know about that, but would like to hear if anyone does have an answer.

This is what I am trying to figure out.

[elgumbo]

I've no idea on the numbers involved, but whatever it is it's only going to increase. The new Google toolbar has a popup blocker fitted as standard.

I'm currently going through my sites and ripping out the popups.

[claus]

MrSpeed, webtrends is based on server logs, which (obviously) record server actions. All that happens after the documents have been sent from the servers is non-recordable in a server log.

If your server sends off a pop-up it will be counted in the log. If the user has software that blocks the pop-up from display, it is still sent from the server and recorded in the log - it usually gets blocked on the way from server to screen. This implies that your 63% figure is without pop-up blockers (ie. the real number could be smaller).

If users have javascript disabled, pop-ups activated by JS will of course not be activated. Search Engines do not activate JS-code, they just treat it as a text string, so they will not see the pop-up either, unless they can identify a link to it.

/claus

<added>JS-disabled and SE's will not get recorded in the logs for the pop-up file (unless they specifically request it), they are among the 37% that does not see both pages</added>

[graywolf]

How about putting a 1 pixel image in the pop up? That way it shouldn't get called unless the page actually gets displayed.

(Glad I removed pop-ups at the begining of the year!)