Forum Moderators: DixonJones
I'm wondering what this means?
Are they actually 0 second visits?
Is it a bug with my counter (statcounter)?
Is it a page load problem?
Is it "Spam traffic"?
Is it a content problem (although, how would a reader judge so quickly)
Are 0 sec visits a "normal" behavior by people? I.e. Click the link to open then change their mind and close straight away.
Any advice appreciated.
A visit of 0 seconds duration usually means that the visitor only looked at one page, a 'Hit & Run'. Because there was only one page, the stats can't guess the amount of time they looked at that page.
Visitors from a search engine or portal who hit & run usually indicated one of a few things:
1) They didn't want your site - you can tell this by tying out the hit & run visit info to the search terms that were used at the portal to get your site listed in the query result. I don't know how/if your counter can do this, in which case you might want to investigate something more robust.
2) The visitor didn't find what they wanted on your landing page - Search engine optimzation is a whole big category of its own; if someone searched for 'fuzzy dice' and didn't find fuzzy dice on your page, but you do have fuzzy dice on your site, you want to make sure that when they land on your site that they do indeed see fuzzy dice. Again, check your keywords and make sure that they are part of the content. Don't go overboard, as doing 'stuff' to make your pages appear nice for the search engine spiders will typically result in a penalty for your listing.
3) Spam traffic can be identified by the a) lack of request for collateral files (graphics, etc) and/or b) the referring site name and link information. Check your stats. Remember that the spammer is just trying to increase the inbound links to their site, so you should disregard them yourself if your counter does not do that for you.
4) A bug with your counter - that should be pretty obvious, as you would not have any stats at all. They are pretty much all or nothing.
I'd suggest you proceed as follows:
A) Determine if they were 'real' visitors
B) Look at why a Hit & Run clicked on your listing in the search result
C) Does your page answer their search query?
Good Luck,
Larry
Can mean that your competitors are just using G cache to see what you are doing as regards SEO and so triggering your "hits" ..closer analysis of your stats will tell you if this is the case?
There are other reasons ..this is the more common one for high percentages of "visitors" shown leaving in the first 30 seconds ..images or other files sourced from your site via the "calls" from pages displayed in "G" cache are seen as "visitors" by stat programs and also in raw logs .."g" cache shows as neither a visitor nor a "bot" ( because it is held on "g"'s server ..but files called from the pages in the "g" cache do show as hits ..easy to confuse with actual human visitors in some stat apps.
further reading on the matter [webmasterworld.com]although it does not speak specifically of this issue ..nevertheless "g"'s "cache" still costs high bandwidth on "image" sites as the images are all sourced from the original site and presented as if they were stored "chez" G ..
Sites which use .htaccess blocking ( even via the switch in cpanel ) will still see their pages cached by "g" if they do not also use the no-cache tag ( #*$!should they have to!) ..but will not see their images ripped from their server and costing them the bandwidth..without them getting the visitor ..
BTW "g" can indeed read and implement javascript files as if you call your images via javascript even heavily encoded .js files .. "g" will serve these images in their cached pages ..and they will do so from your site ..you can check this easily via your own stats in live time just by watching the hits ..
Check to see if those requests also get images -- most bots won't but most people will.
's funny I though that we were supposed to be aiding the OP to discover why s/he might be having these events in their logs ..
's what we were doing .'till you posted ...each in our own way offering possibilities and facts
The call for any passing google shills to step up to the plate with the prepared PR line must have been printed in small font and deleted by the mods before the rest of us got to the thread ..
Or maybe it was in <font>white</font>on <bgrd>white</bgrd> ..
You'd be able to tell us about tags ....and WC3 etc ..standards ..the law ..whatever ..Huh
cause toujours ...tu m'interresse ..
"You need at least 2 pageloads in a visit to work out a duration.
Nothing can detect the time spent looking at a page, only the initial load moment of that page.
Nothing you can do to fix anything. That's the way it is."
hmmm, i have a hunch that paying for this service might not be worth it if the information is not complete.
What do you have to do to get a Analytics invitation? (apart from requesting one that is)
You need at least 2 pageloads in a visit to work out a duration.Nothing can detect the time spent looking at a page, only the initial load moment of that page.
Nothing you can do to fix anything. That's the way it is.
Buster,
I'd triple check the GA script to see if it does in fact record page unloads, otherwise your ISP is right about needing a second load.
Larry
