Data Mining
`We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.'
John Naisbitt
What is data mining?
Data mining sits at the interface between statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, machine learning, database management and data visualisation (to name some of the fields).
Data mining is the non-trivial process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately comprehensible patterns or models in data to make crucial decisions. Data mining is not a product that can be bought. Data mining is a discipline and process that must be mastered - a whole problem solving cycle.
The main part of data mining is concerned with the analysis of data and the use of software techniques for finding patterns and regularities in sets of data. The idea is that it is possible to strike gold in unexpected places as the data mining software extracts patterns not previously discernible or so obvious that no-one has noticed them before. The analysis process starts with a set of data, uses a methodology to develop an optimal representation of the structure of the data during which time knowledge is acquired. Once knowledge has been acquired this can be extended to larger sets of data working on the assumption that the larger data set has a structure similar to the sample data. This is analogous to a mining operation where large amounts of low grade materials are sifted through in order to find something of value.
Is data mining `statistical déjà vu'?
Whereas statistical analysis traditionally concerns itself with analysing primary data that has been collected to check specific research hypotheses (`primary data analysis'), data mining can also concern itself with secondary data collected for other reasons (`secondary data analysis'). Furthermore, data can be experimental data (perhaps the result of an experiment which randomly allocates all the statistical units to different kinds of treatment), but in data mining the data is typically observational data.
Data warehousing provides the enterprise with a memory
Companies are collecting data on seemingly everything. For example, a customer-focused enterprise regards every record of an interaction with a client or prospect (e.g. each call to customer support, each point-of-sale transaction, each catalogue order, each visit to a company web site) as a learning opportunity. But, learning requires more than simply gathering data. In fact, many companies gather hundreds of gigabytes of data without learning anything. For example, data are gathered because they are needed for some operational purpose, such as inventory control or billing. Once data served that purpose, data languish on tape or get discarded. The data's hidden value has largely gone untapped. For learning to take place, data from many sources (e.g. billing records, scanner data, registration forms, applications, call records, coupon redemption, surveys, manufacturing data) must first be gathered together and organised in a consistent and useful way - in a way that facilitates the retrieval of information for analytic purposes. This is called data warehousing. Data warehousing allows the enterprise to remember what it has noticed about its customers. Data warehousing provides the enterprise with a memory.
Data mining provides the enterprise with intelligence
Memory is of little use without intelligence. That is where data mining comes in. Intelligence allows us to comb through our memories noticing patterns, devising rules, coming up with new ideas to try, and making predictions about the future. The data must be analysed, understood and turned into actionable information. Using several data mining tools and techniques that add intelligence to the data warehouse, you will be able to exploit the vast mountains of data, for example, generated by interactions with your customers and prospects in order to get to know them better. Typical customer-focused business questions are:
What customers are most likely to respond to a mailing?
Are there groups (or segments) of customers with similar characteristics or behavior?
Are there interesting relationships between customer characteristics?
Who is likely to remain a loyal customer and who is likely to jump ship?
Where should the next branch be located?
What is the next product or service this customer will want?
Answers to questions like these lie buried in your corporate data, but it takes powerful data mining tools to get at them, i.e. to dig user info for gold. Data mining provides the enterprise with intelligence. Companies can use data mining findings for more profitable, proactive decision making and competitive advantage.
With data mining, companies can, for example, analyze customers' past behaviors in order to make strategic decisions for the future. Keep in mind, however, that the data mining techniques and tools are equally applicable in fields ranging from law enforcement to radio astronomy, medicine, and industrial process control.
Please contact us today in order to discuss how data mining can be applied to your field or work. Get Statooed.
Data mining myths versus realities
A great deal of what is said about data mining is incomplete, exaggerated, or wrong. Data mining has taken the business world by storm, but as with many new technologies, there seems to be a direct relationship between its potential benefits and the quantity of (often) contradictory claims, or myths, about its capabilities and weaknesses. When you undertake a data mining project, avoid a cycle of unrealistic expectations followed by disappointment. Understand the facts instead and your data mining efforts will be (hopefully) successful. A list of the most common data mining myths versus realities you will find here.
Data mining can not be ignored - the data is there, the methods are numerous, and the advantages that knowledge discovery brings are tremendous. Companies whose data mining efforts are guided by `mythology' will find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage to those organizations taking a measured, rational approach based on facts.
source: http://www.statoo.com/en/datamining/
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
ClustrMaps - December 11th 2007
The results on ClustrMaps show that visitors to this blog come from all directions. The blog still isn't that active, but it seems to attract visitors from all continents. Probably because the information is specific but not country-related.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Google Page Rank Update
Posted by David Peralty as Blogging News, General
Don’t get too excited it will take a while for everything to settle, but it looks like it is Google Page Rank update time again. This means your blog could shift around in search results leading to more or less traffic. For those of you getting higher page ranks you might be able to leverage it for some more money, for those of you dropping in page rank, you will probably not be able to make as much money through things like banner and text link advertising.
Good luck to everyone, and may your page ranks be high.
Source: Problogger.net
Don’t get too excited it will take a while for everything to settle, but it looks like it is Google Page Rank update time again. This means your blog could shift around in search results leading to more or less traffic. For those of you getting higher page ranks you might be able to leverage it for some more money, for those of you dropping in page rank, you will probably not be able to make as much money through things like banner and text link advertising.
Good luck to everyone, and may your page ranks be high.
Source: Problogger.net
Developments in Blogs
by David Peralty as Blog Statistics
There is a great post up on Read/WriteWeb about bloggers, the types that are currently out there, and where the blogosphere may be heading. It is a bit long, but very enjoyable, especially if you are interested in blogging for a variety of reasons.
Here is a snippet from the article:
It was a good conference and we had several interesting conversations, but I walked away with a strange feeling. Somehow it seemed that blogging just isn’t that hot anymore. The feeling has been exacerbated by the latest slow down in news. My feeds just do not update that often these days. Can it be that the digestion phase applies to blogs just as it applies to startups? In this post we’ll investigate whether the blogosphere is going through a digestion phase.
Definitely worth a read though I hope we are not in a digestion phase. I still like the crazy unbridled growth we’ve seen over the past two or three years.
There is a great post up on Read/WriteWeb about bloggers, the types that are currently out there, and where the blogosphere may be heading. It is a bit long, but very enjoyable, especially if you are interested in blogging for a variety of reasons.
Here is a snippet from the article:
It was a good conference and we had several interesting conversations, but I walked away with a strange feeling. Somehow it seemed that blogging just isn’t that hot anymore. The feeling has been exacerbated by the latest slow down in news. My feeds just do not update that often these days. Can it be that the digestion phase applies to blogs just as it applies to startups? In this post we’ll investigate whether the blogosphere is going through a digestion phase.
Definitely worth a read though I hope we are not in a digestion phase. I still like the crazy unbridled growth we’ve seen over the past two or three years.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Nedstats - search engines
The Search engine Google has picked up on this blog quite well. It has brought visitors from the different countries as you can see,.
Search Engines - Theory
Search engines provide an interface to a group of items that enables users to specify criteria about an item of interest and have the engine find the matching items. The criteria are referred to as a search query. In the case of text search engines, the search query is typically expressed as a set of words that identify the desired concept that one or more documents may contain.[1]
There are several styles of search query syntax that vary in strictness. Where as some text search engines require users to enter two or three words separated by white space, other search engines may enable users to specify entire documents, pictures, sounds, and various forms of natural language. Some search engines apply improvements to search queries to increase the likelihood of providing a quality set of items through a process known as query expansion.
index-based search engineThe list of items that meet the criteria specified by the query is typically sorted, or ranked, in some regard so as to place the most relevant items first. Ranking items by relevance (from highest to lowest) reduces the time required to find the desired information. Probabilistic search engines rank items based on measures of similarity and sometimes popularity or authority. Boolean search engines typically only return items which match exactly without regard to order.
To provide a set of matching items quickly, a search engine will typically collect metadata about the group of items under consideration beforehand through a process referred to as indexing. The index typically requires a smaller amount of computer storage, and provides a basis for the search engine to calculate item relevance. The search engine may store of copy of each item in a cache so that users can see the state of the item at the time it was indexed or for archive purposes or to make repetitive processes work more efficiently and quickly.
Notably, some search engines do not store an index. Crawler, or spider type search engines may collect and assess items at the time of the search query. Meta search engines simply reuse the index or results of one or more other search engines.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engines
There are several styles of search query syntax that vary in strictness. Where as some text search engines require users to enter two or three words separated by white space, other search engines may enable users to specify entire documents, pictures, sounds, and various forms of natural language. Some search engines apply improvements to search queries to increase the likelihood of providing a quality set of items through a process known as query expansion.
index-based search engineThe list of items that meet the criteria specified by the query is typically sorted, or ranked, in some regard so as to place the most relevant items first. Ranking items by relevance (from highest to lowest) reduces the time required to find the desired information. Probabilistic search engines rank items based on measures of similarity and sometimes popularity or authority. Boolean search engines typically only return items which match exactly without regard to order.
To provide a set of matching items quickly, a search engine will typically collect metadata about the group of items under consideration beforehand through a process referred to as indexing. The index typically requires a smaller amount of computer storage, and provides a basis for the search engine to calculate item relevance. The search engine may store of copy of each item in a cache so that users can see the state of the item at the time it was indexed or for archive purposes or to make repetitive processes work more efficiently and quickly.
Notably, some search engines do not store an index. Crawler, or spider type search engines may collect and assess items at the time of the search query. Meta search engines simply reuse the index or results of one or more other search engines.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engines
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Technorati Blog Info update 4-11-2007
It is always interesting to see the Authorities of Blogs. This one has now Authority 4. Two more blogs have a much higher Authority. They are much longer active of have several members that publish on the blog. I have 11 blogs lister at technorati. That way I can see how the interact and how things work....
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Motigo - Overview visitors 31-10-2007
While Statcounter only registers the last 500 hits, the Motigo counter saves all hits and therefore becomes interesting when one is searchibf for historical information. The longer a site is in the air, the more interesting the statistical data gets because one can make prognoses. Here is an overview of the countries visitors come from. Seems like they come also from abroad now. Even some dozens of hits from www.google.com themselves (in California, USA), so they are reading this too.....
FEEDJIT - Trafic Map
The FEEDJIT Traffic Map shows the locations of the last 100 visitors to your website. Hover your mouse over any point on the map to see a detailed place name.
FEEDJIT - Live Traffic Feed
FeeJit has a nice result besides the wesite that shows how visitors came here and where to they leave. The overview is visible for everybody so they can see what kind of 'traffic' this site genereates. This is also for the owner of a site very interesting information because when he checks the site he sees what is going on.About FEEDJIT
"Our mission is to provide high performance real-time widgets for the blogging community that are free and easy to use. FEEDJIT is founded by two serial entrepreneurs whose previous businesses include a search engine and a blogging platform. If you'd like to contact us, please email"
<support@feedjit.com> with any questions, feedback or bug reports.
Monday, October 29, 2007
FEEDJIT
FEEDJIT gives you real-time traffic data on your blog or website. No registration required and it's completely free. See where your visitors are located in the world, which websites they're arriving from and what they're clicking when they leave your site.
The above textcomes from their own site.
Details on: http://feedjit.com/
I am testing this new application now on this statistical blog as well. It is a Widget that shows the visitors how others get on your site. Other statistical programms have this information as well but mostly it isn't accesible for the visitors. Visitors can follow the same links as previous visitors.
The above textcomes from their own site.
Details on: http://feedjit.com/
I am testing this new application now on this statistical blog as well. It is a Widget that shows the visitors how others get on your site. Other statistical programms have this information as well but mostly it isn't accesible for the visitors. Visitors can follow the same links as previous visitors.
Theory
Statistical analysis of website usage
Analysing data from your website is important. Perception is often vastly different to reality. Website statistics can be misleading if not interpreted properly. A basic analysis can be done using statistics programs provided by your hosting company. Using these statistics, you should be able to evaluate;
Return on investment in SEO. Search engine optimisation companies who charge thousands of dollars for their services often base their claim on getting a handful of top search terms but it may be that only a handful of visitors actually find your website by typing in those search terms. Are you spending hundreds of dollars on hosting, management, search engine optimisation and copywriting a month for a website that no-one visits?
Are your premium google listings, google adwords, adverting costs from other search engines and websites providing a return on investment, or are you spending thousands of dollars for a handful of visitors?
Where are your visitors coming from?
What are the popular search terms and phrases used to find your website?
Are marketing campaigns like letter box drops, competitions, raffles, etc bringing more visitors to your website?
Limitations
Website data like all data collection has limitations. Currently all website statistical programs and web services on the internet assume that a unique user is equal to a unique I.P. Users may choose to access your website from different locations and/or may not have a static IP. Users of dial up internet will not have a static IP and so the website data will count them as a different visitor. Understanding the limitations, is important when interpreting data.
Many people believe that a popular website gets lots of hits. The number of hits is the equal to the number of file requests on a webpage, so if you have lots of images on your website, you will have lots of hits. The number of hits tells you nothing about the popularity of your website or whether your website is working for your business.
All the log analyzers and statistics programs available use simple mathematics. The problem is averages can lie if the proper mathematical model is not used. A statistician knows that averages, medians are meaningless without discussing variance, standard deviations, testing hypothesis, choosing the correct distribution, removing outliners.
Finding meaning in statistics
Statistics is not flawless but it will paint a picture and a good analysis of website usage will benchmark website performance against your desired outcomes and provide options for better website design.
Some questions statistical analysis may provide answers to include -
How many visitors are coming to the website?
Where do visitors come from? If they come from search engines, what key words and phrases are they using to find your website?
How long do visitors stay on your website?
What are the click paths of various type of visitors to your website?
What linking sites do your visitors come from?
Do the statistics give an indication of demographics?
What is the main reason people come to the website to do, read or buy?
However if you want to measure improvement, you need to do a proper analysis and calculate standard deviation. Otherwise, you could prematurely come to a conclusion that there had been an improvement when perhaps it was only variance or seasonal factor that influenced the result.
Using raw logs
Proper statistical analysis can only be done using raw data and by importing data into mathematical programs or log analysing software and eliminating outliners.eg. eliminating the ip addresses of staff members from website usage data. Obviously this is more expensive and the scope and purpose of website statistical analysis must be determined. It is also necessary to compare various tools, as the way that each program manipulates the data will vary and some log analyzers may be programmed incorrectly. Just because it spits out an answer or pie graph does not mean that the answer is correct.
source: http://www.passioncomputing.com.au/Website_Redesign/Statistical_analysis.aspx
Analysing data from your website is important. Perception is often vastly different to reality. Website statistics can be misleading if not interpreted properly. A basic analysis can be done using statistics programs provided by your hosting company. Using these statistics, you should be able to evaluate;
Return on investment in SEO. Search engine optimisation companies who charge thousands of dollars for their services often base their claim on getting a handful of top search terms but it may be that only a handful of visitors actually find your website by typing in those search terms. Are you spending hundreds of dollars on hosting, management, search engine optimisation and copywriting a month for a website that no-one visits?
Are your premium google listings, google adwords, adverting costs from other search engines and websites providing a return on investment, or are you spending thousands of dollars for a handful of visitors?
Where are your visitors coming from?
What are the popular search terms and phrases used to find your website?
Are marketing campaigns like letter box drops, competitions, raffles, etc bringing more visitors to your website?
Limitations
Website data like all data collection has limitations. Currently all website statistical programs and web services on the internet assume that a unique user is equal to a unique I.P. Users may choose to access your website from different locations and/or may not have a static IP. Users of dial up internet will not have a static IP and so the website data will count them as a different visitor. Understanding the limitations, is important when interpreting data.
Many people believe that a popular website gets lots of hits. The number of hits is the equal to the number of file requests on a webpage, so if you have lots of images on your website, you will have lots of hits. The number of hits tells you nothing about the popularity of your website or whether your website is working for your business.
All the log analyzers and statistics programs available use simple mathematics. The problem is averages can lie if the proper mathematical model is not used. A statistician knows that averages, medians are meaningless without discussing variance, standard deviations, testing hypothesis, choosing the correct distribution, removing outliners.
Finding meaning in statistics
Statistics is not flawless but it will paint a picture and a good analysis of website usage will benchmark website performance against your desired outcomes and provide options for better website design.
Some questions statistical analysis may provide answers to include -
How many visitors are coming to the website?
Where do visitors come from? If they come from search engines, what key words and phrases are they using to find your website?
How long do visitors stay on your website?
What are the click paths of various type of visitors to your website?
What linking sites do your visitors come from?
Do the statistics give an indication of demographics?
What is the main reason people come to the website to do, read or buy?
However if you want to measure improvement, you need to do a proper analysis and calculate standard deviation. Otherwise, you could prematurely come to a conclusion that there had been an improvement when perhaps it was only variance or seasonal factor that influenced the result.
Using raw logs
Proper statistical analysis can only be done using raw data and by importing data into mathematical programs or log analysing software and eliminating outliners.eg. eliminating the ip addresses of staff members from website usage data. Obviously this is more expensive and the scope and purpose of website statistical analysis must be determined. It is also necessary to compare various tools, as the way that each program manipulates the data will vary and some log analyzers may be programmed incorrectly. Just because it spits out an answer or pie graph does not mean that the answer is correct.
source: http://www.passioncomputing.com.au/Website_Redesign/Statistical_analysis.aspx
Friday, October 26, 2007
GeoVisite
The firm http://www.geovisite.com/ has three options for you to have interactive java-scripts that you can run on your website. I have added then all three now so you can have a look at what they do and what kind of information they give. Each has its specific information so it depends on what you want to share with your visitors. The site sure gets lively with the videos that it brings. I had to place them seperately on the blog so it wouldn't disturb the site too much. have a look at:
1. GeoGlobe
2. GeoCounter
3. Geomap
1. GeoGlobe
2. GeoCounter
3. Geomap
GeoVisite
A new addition to this Statistical Data blog is the application that GeoVisite offers. Go to http://www.geovisite.com/ to find out the details. It brings a turning world with the hits mentioned and also an overview of the countries they come from. Just have a look at the icon that is in the sidebar.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
StatCounter - Returning Visits
This overview is always interesting. Do visitors come back after a first visit. Seems that is the case here, judging these graphical presented results by www.statcounter.com
StatCounter - Returning Visits
How does the 'Returning Visit' work?
From your project log of the last x number of pageloads, we extract the total number of unique visitors present in it. Each unique visitor has a cookie, which is incremented each time they return to visit your website (a couple of hours is needed between visits depending on your settings). From this info we can show you how often visitors return to see your website again and again.
The best and most successful websites are the ones with a very high return frequency. If you have a low or non-existant return frequency you may want to change your website to encourage your visitors to come again and again.
From your project log of the last x number of pageloads, we extract the total number of unique visitors present in it. Each unique visitor has a cookie, which is incremented each time they return to visit your website (a couple of hours is needed between visits depending on your settings). From this info we can show you how often visitors return to see your website again and again.
The best and most successful websites are the ones with a very high return frequency. If you have a low or non-existant return frequency you may want to change your website to encourage your visitors to come again and again.
Statcounter - Popular Pages
This overview of www.statcounter.com gives you a perfect overview of what the popular pages on your website are. These subjects are interesting to your visitors!
Statcounter - Popular Pages
What can the Popular Pages tell me?
You will quickly see which pages are the most heavily visited by your visitors and what ones are being left well enough alone. If some pages are being overlooked it could be a good idea to improve or make the navigation to those pages more obvious. Or entice your visitors to find out more about these pages.
Drill down the data - show all your visitors that visited this particular page during their visit!
Common problem with Popular Page Stats
If you only install the StatCounter code on one page of your website we can only track one page of your website. It is highly recommended to install the same code on all pages of your website you want to track.
You will quickly see which pages are the most heavily visited by your visitors and what ones are being left well enough alone. If some pages are being overlooked it could be a good idea to improve or make the navigation to those pages more obvious. Or entice your visitors to find out more about these pages.
Drill down the data - show all your visitors that visited this particular page during their visit!
Common problem with Popular Page Stats
If you only install the StatCounter code on one page of your website we can only track one page of your website. It is highly recommended to install the same code on all pages of your website you want to track.
Queries - Extreme Tracker
Yes, I must admit I am a fan of this Extreme Tracker because it produces overviews that are very interesting. This is just a sample: with which words do the visitors come to my site and through which searchengine with what keywords? I like the answers to these questions. Seems like more people do since they ask these questions.Browsers - by Extreme Tracker 25-10-2007
Extreme Tracker is running for over a month now. It gives a clear overview of the browsers the visitors use that come here. Microsoft still has a large part of this, but there are changes visibible.
Friday, October 19, 2007
ClustrMap Results on 19-10-2007
Running total of visits to the above URL since 1 Oct 2007: 141Total since archive, i.e. 1 Oct 2007 - present: 141 (not necessarily all displayed - see below). Visits on previous 'day': 1.Additional Notes about totals and map updates (for full guide see Map Key):The map shows individual visits to the web site shown at the top of the page, clustered within a given distance. The location of each visit is based on the IP address of the computer used. Update frequency variation: In order for your map to be 'updated' (whether daily, weekly, or monthly) the number of visitors shown must also have grown by a certain percentage since the last update.
This percentage may have changed recently, and is explained more fully in our FAQ about update frequency.Total/subtotal discrepancies above are typically caused either by IP addresses not currently being in the database or by the gap between counter tallies (continous) and map updates (which may be daily, weekly, or monthly).
See FAQ for additional explanations.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Statistics Cartoon
The use of the statistical tools on your websites gives you the numbers to proof what you say about your website.
Authority update 12-10-2007
Suddenly the Authority of this blog went from 2 up to 4. Seems that things I prepaired worked quite well.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Statcounter - Information Visit Length
StatCounter gives a nice feature: The length of the visits on your site. When visitors leave within 5 seconds, that means they probably weren't interested at all. The rest you can see how long they stayed. How they measure this? They just measure the time between entrebce URL en exit URL. So the details aren't that optimal, but an indication for sure.For the free StatCounter tool it only measures the last 500 visitis. Not that much for a test. For access to the complete features one has to pay.
Technorati Blog Info update 9-10-2007
Seems that my blogs are picked up nicely in the Technorati listings. Two of them even got Autority 13. Not bad. This specific blog (Statistical Data) stays on 2. Probaly because it is relatively small and not that well interlinked with other websites yet.
Monday, October 8, 2007
StatCounter - Browsers
What decision can the browser stats help with?
The obvious question is have you tested your website in the browsers your visitors are using? A website can look great in one particular browser and not work in any other. It is always recommended to code websites using the standards maintained by W3C.
This ensures that not only will your website be compatible now, but it will also be compatible for future software!
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Counter on 6-10-2007
The number of visitors is starting to grow on this blog. One of the counters has reached 500. Another counter has reached 51, and they once went parallel. So the numbers can't always be trusted...
ClustrMap on 6-10-2007
The first results are measured and shown here. When the listing is active longer the ball will get larger in the places where more visitors come from (or return).
Keywords - StatCounter: List
StatCounter gives you a list of keywords people looked for and then found your site. Here you can see how people came to this actual Statistical Data site. It shows the interest of you visitors.
Keywords - StatCounter
How can the Recent Keyword Activity help me?
This a great way to see up to the second how the latest visitors to your website are using the search engines to find your website, and then magnify them to see how they used your website.
Why does the same search term appear again and again with the same ip address?
This is how your visitors are using your website! They are clicking onto your website from a search engine result, then a little later they are doing it again and sometimes again and again. We track exactly what your visitors are doing don't be suprised by some of their very strange behaviour. Learn from it!
Choosing the Best Keywords
Effective search engine optimization depends on choosing the best keywords and I recommend using a combination of the Google Keyword Analysis and Overture Keyword Selector Tool.
This a great way to see up to the second how the latest visitors to your website are using the search engines to find your website, and then magnify them to see how they used your website.
Why does the same search term appear again and again with the same ip address?
This is how your visitors are using your website! They are clicking onto your website from a search engine result, then a little later they are doing it again and sometimes again and again. We track exactly what your visitors are doing don't be suprised by some of their very strange behaviour. Learn from it!
Choosing the Best Keywords
Effective search engine optimization depends on choosing the best keywords and I recommend using a combination of the Google Keyword Analysis and Overture Keyword Selector Tool.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Statcounter - Results per day on 3-10-2007
StatCounter has a nice tool to personalize the graphics you need. I have choosen a recent periode here and it shows the piek in the hits (a few days ago) quite nicely. If you need to show someone the results of a special posting of PR-campaing on your website, this is a great tool. If e.g. someone would write about this blog and would link to this site that would show up in such a gragh immediately. With the other tools installed you could find out the references of these extra hits and you could trace where the extra visistors come from. That is in fact how I discover if and how someone has written about this blog.If something like I mentioned above happens, I will write you a report on how I use the installed startistical programs to find out the details. With the right tools one can find out quite interesting details about a site.
Motigo - Overview Continents 3-10-2007
On the map that Motigo shows thare are obvious hisr from abroad. The ClustrMap has a delay of one day, so eventually there will show up some more red dots on the small map.
Believing Counters
On this blog I have two counters running. Both went allong quite bicely, but the last days there is a difference of 16 between the two. It meena one of them had a failure in counting. That porooves that a counter doesn't register all that you would like it too.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Explenation Clustrmap
This chart is given by Clustrmap to explain what you can see on the image. To get this image you have to click on the small image in the sidebar. An administrator can log in and get all the details. It will get interesting when this site gets a lot of foreign visitors....
Clustrmaps
On the site http://clustrmaps.com/ you can get a nice gadget that can be implemented on your site. It is a worldmap that shws you where your visitors come from. In the beginning it will be empty, but after a while (and with foreign visitors) the image will build up. I have placed it on top of the sidebar on this blog for this moment. You can now see immediately what countries the visitors come from.
Other statistical programms have this option too. But Clustrmap shows the image straight away on the site for all to see.
Other statistical programms have this option too. But Clustrmap shows the image straight away on the site for all to see.
Search Queries - 1 October 2007
This is also an interesting feature in eXTReMe Tracker: You can see which queries were asked through search-engines. That explains how people are finding this Statistical Data Blog. Only the last 20 quesries are saved, so that isn't that helpfull for the search of why visitors come to your site.eXTReMe Tracker - Countries on 1-10-2007
eXTReMe Tracker gives this overview of unique visitors to this blog. Seems like visitors come from very different countries indeed. This is a very clear presentation.Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sitemeter - Results Worldmap 30-9-2007
This is one of the better worldmaps that I have seen. Sitemeter produces them and this sample is of this actual site. Yes, more foeign visitos come in. Seems the texts als attract visitors. Statistical data is always interesting as it seems.
Note the dots and their meaning.
Technorati Blog Info update 30-9-2007
The many postings and links on this blog must have helped. The Authority just went up to 2, and now indicates how this blog is seen by the Technorati programm. We will see how it increases further as the blog grows and the interlinking gets more scuccesfull.
Motigo - Overview Countries 30-9-2007
On the Motigo counter I can see where the visitors of the last daya came from. Seems like the Yahoo group is visited mainly by USA-inhabitants from East to West. One could zoom in on this map and find out where their computer lives....
Statcounter - Results per day on 30-9-2007
The statistical data that is registered at StatCounter is growing. I have asked people on a Yahoo Group om mail-art (seee: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iuoma/) to start visiting this blog and that has caused some hits yeterday. That is clearly visible here.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Poll
On 29-9-2007 I have addded this poll besides this blog. This way I will get some information about how visitors think about the statistical programms.
Technorati Blog Info update 29-9-2007
A new list of the authority as generated by the Technorati website. Some more improvements. It is interesting to find out how this works.
New Blog
On a new blog: http://countingnumbers.blogspot.com/ I am only placing numbers. I have added a statistical programm too. I want to see how it starts to attracht visitors. The number of postings will be an indication. I will make no special links to this posting, so a special test indeed.
Statcounter - Information
On the site www.statcounter.com they give lots of information about the meaning of special information they generate. An example with some keywords:
Returning Visitors - Based purely on a cookie, if this person is returning to your website for another visit an hour or more later
First Time Visitors - Based purely on a cookie, if this person has no cookie then this is considered their first time at your website.
Unique Visitor - Based purely on a cookie, this is the total of the returning visitors and first time visitors - all your visitors.
Page Load - The number of times your page has been visited.
What can the Summary Stats tell me?
There are two dimensions to the stats for a 'Standard StatCounter project'. There are the 'Summary Stats', and the 'Detailed Log Analysis'. The 'Summary Stats' provide a lifetime daily count of the totals of visitors to your website each day. And allows you to run reports since the day you started the project! After a few months of tracking, it is absolutely superb to look back and to see the daily, weekly and monthly trends of your visitors. Does your website have a weekday rush and a weekend slump? Did your traffic take a surge leading up to a holiday season? Is your website in general growing or stagnating? It is a wonderful tool to quickly assess the current success of your website.
How do the Summary Stats work?
The 'Summary Stats' determines whether a visitor has been to your website before by using a cookie. So if a user has cookies disabled we have no way of knowing if they are unique or not, and will by default be considered unique. However the majority of visitors have cookies enabled.
To make up for relying on cookies in the summary stats, the rest of the stats are based on your detailed log analysis of the last xxx number of pageloads. The uniqueness in this case is based on your visitors' IP addresses. This method works very well for the majority, but yet again there is an exception. AOL users, and visitors who use what is known as a 'dynamic web proxy' that changes each time they access a webpage. So if a single AOL user visits 7 webpages on your website it will likely come up as 7 different IP addresses!
Both cookies and IP addresses have their strengths and weaknesses for determining the uniqueness of a visitor. It is impossible to be 100% accurate the entire time, but with the Standard StatCounter Project you get the best of both worlds. Cookies for the 'Summary Stats' and IP addresses for the 'Detailed Log Analysis'!
The Advanced StatCounter Project combines the best of both worlds to use an almost fool-proof system (the only problem is AOL visitors who have cookies disabled! Not many!) but it is very server intensive, and won't be possible to provide as a free service until the cost of hardware and dedicated servers come down in price.
Returning Visitors - Based purely on a cookie, if this person is returning to your website for another visit an hour or more later
First Time Visitors - Based purely on a cookie, if this person has no cookie then this is considered their first time at your website.
Unique Visitor - Based purely on a cookie, this is the total of the returning visitors and first time visitors - all your visitors.
Page Load - The number of times your page has been visited.
What can the Summary Stats tell me?
There are two dimensions to the stats for a 'Standard StatCounter project'. There are the 'Summary Stats', and the 'Detailed Log Analysis'. The 'Summary Stats' provide a lifetime daily count of the totals of visitors to your website each day. And allows you to run reports since the day you started the project! After a few months of tracking, it is absolutely superb to look back and to see the daily, weekly and monthly trends of your visitors. Does your website have a weekday rush and a weekend slump? Did your traffic take a surge leading up to a holiday season? Is your website in general growing or stagnating? It is a wonderful tool to quickly assess the current success of your website.
How do the Summary Stats work?
The 'Summary Stats' determines whether a visitor has been to your website before by using a cookie. So if a user has cookies disabled we have no way of knowing if they are unique or not, and will by default be considered unique. However the majority of visitors have cookies enabled.
To make up for relying on cookies in the summary stats, the rest of the stats are based on your detailed log analysis of the last xxx number of pageloads. The uniqueness in this case is based on your visitors' IP addresses. This method works very well for the majority, but yet again there is an exception. AOL users, and visitors who use what is known as a 'dynamic web proxy' that changes each time they access a webpage. So if a single AOL user visits 7 webpages on your website it will likely come up as 7 different IP addresses!
Both cookies and IP addresses have their strengths and weaknesses for determining the uniqueness of a visitor. It is impossible to be 100% accurate the entire time, but with the Standard StatCounter Project you get the best of both worlds. Cookies for the 'Summary Stats' and IP addresses for the 'Detailed Log Analysis'!
The Advanced StatCounter Project combines the best of both worlds to use an almost fool-proof system (the only problem is AOL visitors who have cookies disabled! Not many!) but it is very server intensive, and won't be possible to provide as a free service until the cost of hardware and dedicated servers come down in price.
Statcounter - Results per day on 29-9-2007
StatCounter gives a clear overview of the hits over the week. The programm only runs a few weeks now but he results are visible nicely....
Number - Definition
A number is an abstract idea used in counting and measuring. A symbol which represents a number is called a numeral, but in common usage the word number is used for both the idea and the symbol. In addition to their use in counting and measuring, numerals are often used for labels (telephone numbers), for ordering (serial numbers), and for codes (ISBNs). In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers.
Certain procedures which input one or more numbers and output a number are called numerical operations. Unary operations input a single number and output a single number. For example, the successor operation adds one to an integer: the successor of 4 is 5. More common are binary operations which input two numbers and output a single number. Examples of binary operations include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponentiation. The study of numerical operations is called arithmetic.
The branch of mathematics that studies abstract number systems such as groups, rings and fields is called abstract algebra.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number
Certain procedures which input one or more numbers and output a number are called numerical operations. Unary operations input a single number and output a single number. For example, the successor operation adds one to an integer: the successor of 4 is 5. More common are binary operations which input two numbers and output a single number. Examples of binary operations include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponentiation. The study of numerical operations is called arithmetic.
The branch of mathematics that studies abstract number systems such as groups, rings and fields is called abstract algebra.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number
Friday, September 28, 2007
eXTReMe Tracker - All Keywords
One of the reasons I like eXTReMe Tracker so much is because they have a cummulative report on the keywords that visitors use in seach-engines to reach your site. When the programm runs for a longer time it gets obvious what visitors are looking for. This is only the beginning of this list. It will grow steadily and in a few years this will get very interesting. It teaches me what the public looked for and decided to click on. If I would like to know which search-engines brought visitors to this blog, that is visible as well.
Stats of Michael Lumb Site
This is a very interesting sample of how statistics from Motigo can give you a view of ahwt happens to a site. This is a site I made to publish the Thesis by Michael Lumb in UK to promote his work on Mail-Art. (see: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/palace/62/). I updated the site only a few times and also installed the Motigo Counter. Here you can see how the interest for this thesis built up and reached its peak in 2003. Now slowly the interest fades. The interesting aspect is here to see the total amount of visitors over a period of 10 years. Most counters don't provide such a long service. Motigo originally was called NedStats, but they always kept the data they collected of the sites that were added. Bravo! Food for statistical people....
World Map on Sitemeter
The worldmap that Sitemeter gives is quite impressive. One can even select a part of the world and the hits are shown. The point on the map vary depending on the number of hits from that place. You can see in one look where the concentration of your visitors comes from. For this blog that is still a quite empty map. but in future days this might become an interesting feature.
Sitemeter - First Results
Sitemeter has a first entracnce page which is only visible for the owner of the site. It gives the basic details first. In the menu you can select all the details you want. Samples will follow.
Free Hit Counters
The Free Hit Counters are tempting, but Easy Hits Counters only has a limited set of details they show. Most web-owners just ad such a counter to their site to keep track of the amount of visitors without all the fancy details.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Countries according to eXTReMe Tracker
The statistics of eXTReMe Tracker today of the countries that have visited this site. As you can see they even include that flags. A small gadget. eXTReME Tracker record historically, so I will use their data to give an idea of how the visitors-information will change over a longer periode. Off course in the beginning a lot of hits by myself because of the testing. But you see that is now only 50% of the hits. The blog is being found, also through search-engines. And that bings hits as well.
What is Site Meter tracking exactly?
Site Meter tracks page views and visits. You may also have heard the term "hits". When someone comes to your site, they generate a "hit" for every piece of content that is sent to their computer. Viewing a single web site page would generate one hit for the page and one hit for every individual graphics file that was on the page. A single page could easily generate a dozen or more hits. When you are browsing a site, every time you follow a link, it is treated as a single "page view". Site Meter defines a "visit" as a series of page views by one person with no more than 30 minutes in between page views.
source: http://support.sitemeter.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=2
source: http://support.sitemeter.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=2
Request
When you have stumbeled onto this site, a small request: hit the reload button a few time (as many times as you like). It is a good test for the counters that are active on this blog. I will document the results of such experiments with future postings.
Sitemeter
A new counter is added to the list. It is located at www.sitemeter.com . Yes, a lot of free counters are available online. They all have their specifics and most of them can be upgraded if you want to use the data for business (you then mostly don't want the advertising and also a possibilty to historify the data - more capacity)
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Statcounter: Returning Visitors
Statcounter gives you very interesting graphics of returning visitors. They just notice the IP numbers of your visitors and then keepo track if someone comes back. With this free account they only register 500 items. If this is interesting you might consider a paid account that brings you a wealth of information.
Keywords Statcounter
The Statistical programms of Statcounter also report you which keywords bring visitors to your site. Always interesting to know how they come.....
Hits according to StatCounter
Hits according to StatCounter on 26-9-2007. They have a different graphical program. You can even change the presentation in several ways as you like. Looks good when you have to present your hits to an audience and/or management.Hits according to Motigo
Motigo has registered these hot on this site. It seperates the returning hits and the individual visitors. As you can see the hits have dropped because there are only few changes to the site now.
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