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Counting visits from bookmarks

How easy is this, and how accurate?

         

fom2001uk

8:57 pm on Nov 24, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Is this just a case of counting hits to "favicon.ico"?

How accurate is this likely to be, and is there any other way to track visits that originate from bookmarks?

Lots0

9:09 pm on Nov 24, 2002 (gmt 0)



My understanding is that when you see a hit to “favicon.ico” in your logs only happens when someone bookmarks your site for the first time. When the browser bookmark is used to load your site it most likely will show as a “no referrer” in your logs.

So IMO the only thing “favicon.ico” is good for (in this context) is to tell when someone using IE has book marked your site.

Chris_R

9:48 pm on Nov 24, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I have often heard people say they have x amount of bookmarkers to their site, but I am not sure how they know this.

The favicon.ico thing is as Lots0 descibes it for IE, but I am not sure how you can tell visits.

Sometime - in AXS - I can see:

A visitor from 12.34.5.6 example.com
arrived from bookmarks,
and visited www.example.com

but I am not sure hw that works - as when I bookmar a page and go to it - it just says no referer.

fom2001uk

12:14 pm on Nov 25, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



So, you can only tell how many have bookmarked the site for the first time. There's no way you can tell how many of your visitors have arrived from a bookmark, after that.

Of course, they'll be in the NO REFERRERS somewhere, but there's no way of telling how much of that is bookmarks.

As I suspected, sadly.

Hagstrom

1:24 pm on Nov 25, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



So, you can only tell how many have bookmarked the site for the first time.

Not even that!
NetScape and Opera may request favicon along with the first html-document. I have seen browsers requesting favicon before asking for stylesheets, images etc.

Lots0

4:27 pm on Nov 25, 2002 (gmt 0)



Hagstrom said,
NetScape and Opera may request favicon along with the first html-document. I have seen browsers requesting favicon before asking for stylesheets, images etc.

I have not noticed this before, but I will keep a look out for this behavior. I don’t understand why netscape and opera would request your favicon with a html doc or stylesheet, I mean its just a small graphic that has nothing to do with any document unless your page has been book marked.

c3oc3o

5:09 pm on Nov 25, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Mozilla shows (=fetches) the favicon in the tab bar and url bar whenever you access the page, whether you bookmark or not.