How can all paths be single pages, but avg page view per visitor is 3?

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How can all paths be single pages, but avg page view per visitor is 3?

Does that make any sense?

Craig_F

5:42 pm on Jul 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

All of my top paths are 1 page deep, but average page views per visitor is 3. How can that be?

Craig_F

5:45 pm on Jul 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

One more thing. I was sitting here fretting over the paths being only one page deep, but how do I know that is not a good thing? Meaning that if I do my job really well the user should be directed to the exact page they want all the time, that would make for lots of paths 1 pg deep....right?

fom2001uk

9:39 pm on Jul 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

Sounds like your using WebTrends.

The paths reports are less than useless. I stopped using that report. Waste of time unless you set up lots of filters.

Sinner_G

7:00 am on Jul 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

I have had the same problem with another tool (i.e. websuxess). And the site analysed is a dynamic one, so most pages are not indexed with SEs...meaning a single page path is not possible (ok, bookmarks, but I don't think that makes for all the PageViews).

Anyone got a solution for that?

chiyo

8:20 am on Jul 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

I dont think it is possible for any access log analysis software to validly report paths, given what they have to work with - the raw access logs. ive tried it with webtrends, and FastStats - a lot of analysis and data crunching for invalid data.

If you play around with your raw access logs in a spreadsheet, you will get a quick idea of the limitations of the raw data.

Sinner_G

8:40 am on Jul 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

I figure by filtering by IP adress you should have a good start. Then if you see an IP going from page1.html to page2.html at 09:02 pm and the same IP going from page2.html to page3.html at 09:04 pm, you are getting somewhere.

I know that many ISPs and companies have the same IPs for many users, but wouldn't that give you some clues?

Craig_F

2:27 pm on Jul 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

Yes, I am using WebTrends. I'm disappointed to hear that some of you don't find path data valid becuase that is what I was most interested in. Can anyone give more help on how to ensure that it is as valid as it can be? And if paths are simply not valid how the heck do figure our what people are doing on your site?

Sinner_G

3:26 pm on Jul 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

craig_f I think that what everybody means is that the analysis delivered by WT (and every other tool I know) is worthless. We all get the same 1 page paths as you.

What I don't understand is why analysis tools are not able to follow a path longer than that.

Maybe setting a session cookie would help?

Craig_F

7:50 pm on Jul 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

But *everyone* can't be getting single page paths...right? I can't believe that many log file tools like WT advertise paths but can't really provide the info. With my small log file I thought this would be cakewalk for WT, but to be honest I was getting better path data from the free HitBox. Somehow WT has to be as good as HitBox....

Mardi_Gras

8:01 pm on Jul 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

Craig_F - any program that depends entirely on log files for analysis will have limited usefulness. If you have any quantity of AOL users they will render your log statistics meaningless.

AXS offers free visitor tracking code to go on each page, which gives you a great view of exactly what people do when they visit your site. However, it is not really useful for viewing trends, total visitors, etc. It is mostly a single purpose tool to analyze what people do when they get to your site. For that single purpose, it is hard to beat.

It was interesting to use AXS and see how useless most log analysis software is. I don't know if any one program holds the answer - I think the solution lies in a combination of cookies, PHP, and MySQL - that's where I am trying to get now.

Sinner_G

6:40 am on Jul 9, 2002 (gmt 0)

mardis_gras, please let us know if you find THE solution. I think that is a major problem for most of us.

Mardi_Gras

1:57 pm on Jul 9, 2002 (gmt 0)

That's a big burden, Sinner_G! ;)

[added]Any suggestions on this one - a complete cookies/PHP/MySQL tracking solution?[/added]

Craig_F

8:23 pm on Jul 9, 2002 (gmt 0)

Ok, regardless of the problems my clients would still like to see some path data.

A large amount of our user base is from AOL, which is what I believe is resulting in the 1 page top paths. So, can anyone tell me how to filter out the AOL users?

I'm thinking that if I fiter them out I might be able to get to see some real path info. Sounds silly since they are our largest user base, I know, but I'd really like to see some decent path info.