Stats …. what’s it all mean or my attempt at being techie!

  After a comment left on a friends blog about stats, and because there is a complete lack of helpful, or in fact any, information, on statistics. I decided to do my own little guide. I am quite fascinated by the Stats, not just the “How many” but the “Who” (possibly because, before all the changes, looking in stats and following links {Z} may have found you knew friends!)

Please feel free to correct any errors, this is only as I’ve observed it, over the years, of blogging.

First where do you find Statistics, surprisingly there are still people who don’t know this!

It’s on the top right of your blog page or Space, under options.

See Fig 1.

The first 2 lines are  self explanatory, Total number of views since your space was opened, Page views today, Page views this week and in the last hour.

These are only views to your space, blog, or guest book, anyone visiting just your profile page, will not be recorded at all.

Then we have Date … I think we all know what that means, but for some reason, it switches between a 24 hour clock and 12 hour one. It will only show 24 hours worth of entries, however many, or few.

Page title …. the Page that was visited. ie: Your Space, your guest book,  your blog, photo etc.

Referring Address …. This is the tricky one!

 

Fig.1

• A. The cid no. is my own ID, which means the visitor went from my profile page to my blog page. Above A, the visitor, then went to look at my guestbook, this isn’t necessarily so, but probable, if the times are reasonably close together{1}
• B. This isn’t my cid no. but if I click on it, it will take me to my own home/profile page. To find out where this visitor came from but not necessarily, who they are, copy /paste the address into the address bar but take out “home” or “profile”. I’m guessing that if it says “home” then that would be the the “Who” but if it says “profile” it could be anyone reading, that I’ve made a comment somewhere {2}
• C. In the referring page column there is nothing, zilch, nada! This means that the person is in a different time/space continuum and the UFO you saw fly over last night, hacked into your wireless connection and had a look around!{3} Above C. is a referring address, Facebook etc, so some one clicked on my link on Facebook. Following that link back will take you to my profile page, on Facebook.{4}
• D.(reading from the bottom up) They went from my, profile page, to my space, from my space to my blog window, from there, they looked at March’s blogs, then they looked at a specific blog, (line above the red square)
• You can also see,from time to time, Google or Live search in the referring address column. {5}
• If some one who doesn’t have permission to view your space, tries to see it, then you will get “Windows – Live Space” in the “page title” column, and nothing in the “referring address column.
• Any questions?

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Fig2

Then we come to fig2 ………….

This is something I hope some one will be able to help me with.

• B. The normal way that page titles comes up, is always, with “- Windows Live” tagged to the page visited {6}
• A. But in box A. there are these entries, (no “windows-Live” tag) and as you’ll see, I had a lot of those entries that day. I’ve tried loads of different methods, signed in with different IDs, come from different places BUT “- Windows live” is always there. I even tried “incognito” {7} viewing. I’m still getting these entries but not so many, as that day.

So ………… any ideas?

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End Notes{8}

{1} , Mandxx – Windows Live and wobblyone2 etc are the same page viewed from different angles

{2} This is a bit confusing, as we all have 2 home pages and a profile page, (or is that visa versa) and if I’m on my home page it’s not necessarily the same page as you would call my home page because it’s my profile page not your home page because your profile page is also your home page …….. you get it?

{3} No silly, of course it doesn’t but I was getting bored and thought you might be too! It means that they came from “off site”. Probably they typed in my Spaces address into the address bar and visited. (there is a possibility (don’t know) that it could be someone with a hidden IP addr.?)

{4} The phd?id number, if there, will be the who, in this case.

{5} Hey you’ve been googled! Welcome to the club! Putting ANY rude word, in your blog, will get you closer to the top of the google results pages, the more rude words you have, the more you’ll appear in results. The sentence …. “2 naked women having sex” anywhere in the blog, will get you immediately, to the top of the first google results page!

{6} You may not be able to see this, if your space’s name is a long one.

{7} This warning cracked me up, on Google Chrome’s “incognito page” specially the last two …..

Going incognito doesn’t affect the behaviour of other people, servers or software.

Be wary of:

• Websites that collect or share information about you
• Internet service providers or employers that track the pages that you visit
• Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
• Surveillance by secret agents
• People standing behind you

(Nice to see some ones got a sense of humour!)

{8} Thanks Happy!

{Z} Up until the “Big Changes” stats, actually had the name of the person visiting, you could click on their name and go to their site … so much easier!

So if all this reading has made you think/realise that Stats are a good idea, please write to Live team and tell them.

What it’s made me realise is ….

  I really need to get a life!

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Fig3

 

• For no reason whatsoever!{x}

{x} Sorry guys, get your own pic to look at!

Footnote: Because of the complete lack of information in "Help" on spaces, I’m wondering if Stats are going to be phased out completely. I think that would be a shame, so if you agree, go write and tell Live Team!