Statistics is a powerful word in many areas of work, such has businesses and corporations, but there also plenty of statistics site that allow you to obtain stats and counters of how your own website and how it's doing in it's own areas. Now many webmasters will use some sort of statistic site or use other methods to obtain information on such things like PageRank and Pageviews, but if your new to the whole stat scene then don't worry we will be covering some website statisitcs and even some tips on how to get your website higher in the ranks!
Website Statistics in General
These sites give you a variety of stats to gaze upon such as, pageviews, pageloads, views, popular pages, search engines that contain your link. I name literally 1/8 of what can be provided to you and in fact the whole stats can really become quite overwelming for a beginner user. And thats okay, stats can seriously get confusing without knowing the theory behind it. Stick with me kid, you'll be fine.
Like I've said there are loads of Statistic sites out there but which ones are good to use? Well there all different in there own ways but there purpose is the same. Giving you statistics on demand whenever you need them, but you saying "Great but serious which sites are good?"
Alexa.com
Alexa is a very popular statistic site and is used by many businesses as well as normal web users. They provide stats on every website out there, and how they work is quite simple. Once your website is in there database they begin to measure certain factors of your website like TrafficRank as well a something called Reach. Here's a image of what Alexa's stats look like:
Alexa is slightly different as there stats are puiblicly accessible to everyone and this mean you can also view other stats of other websites, which is perfectly fine. No private data is presented so no ones getting compramised.
Google!
Of course I couldn't not mention google in the tutorial! Google provides a service called Google analytics and this yet another great service, it's free like many other stat sites but this time we see a example of a private statistic based site. With analytics you create a private account which you can only log into and see your websites stats, Google provide stats such as this:
These kind of stat sites don't just collect your information for you. You need to place a code into your webpages for this stat site to starting collecting and processing information. These codes are described as silent codes as they don't show up in your content on your webpages but are visible in your source code.
Built in Stat methods
If your website is hosted with someone who runs something called cPanel, then you are in look. Services like cPanel include statistic features built into them, and there already configured to collect stats as all the settings are pointing at your website domain because it's your account. However, using these stats sometimes can give off bad data, and from past experiences they tend to sometimes give off bad data. I'd recommend you use another stat service like I mentioned above to cross check your stats. Here's some examples of stats from cPanel:
Public Accessible stats
Some people like to have there website stats private, but some wish to share there stats with the world, which is fine. The difference between public and private is simply this:
Public: Anyone can access your website stats and look at the information presented. Public stats is usually used in non-commerical websites
Private: Only you and maybe a few others can few your stats and information presented. Private stats would most likely used for major websites/companies which do not wish for there competition to view there stats
So do stats matter?
So I've gave you examples of stats and the differences in them, but should you bother with them. I think stats matter because they help you visualise your websites potenial and how your doing in the terms of popularity and lets not forget stats aren't just boring tables of information, you get graphics and %'s and everything, so it's really the full deal. Like in the examples you've seen above, although different stats sites produce there stats differently they end up rougly the same as each other.
While stats give you useful information you should not always use them all the time. You should also use your own judgement, because although this sounds impossible, it is actually possible to use stats to much, and one day your going to get in the face with the big "Stat train" and it's going to hurt. So my recommendations would be simply be this:
"Use stats to get a idea of how your doing in the terms of rank and popularity, but make sure you don't over use them, you are the webmaster you make the decisions don't just think that stats overule you. You rule!"
