I also love the Feedjit.com Widget that show U visitors coming in from all over the World + what they arrived at*

;))

But for myself, I know that there’s a lot of quiet people on the web. And that there’s nothing wrong with that. If they have something to say, that’s cool. If they just want to read, that’s cool, too. I like them both coming back. It’s more difficult to track, but I guess I’m just a crowd-pleaser.

Before the advent of Google Analytics and friends, I used to use server-side perl scripts to compile the statistics for various websites I tended to. They needed no cookies or javascript, because this was just the webserver logging when someone (naturally) requested a page or image or whatever. AWStats was my favorite.

Alexa tells me not that much right now because I don’t have enough traffic for it. Technorati has been a little more informative, because there are a few blogs linking back to me now, or mentioning me, or whatever. Whether or not people should worry about either is up to them; I don’t really worry much, but I know when my rankings go up it’ll be a good sign—and at that point they’ll be more informative.

This article was in fact inspired by the bemoaning of bounce rates in various forums and blogs, including the EntreCard world but also outside of it. You have to consider multiple metrics as well as what those metrics mean to you. Metrics without meaning is just statistics without context—and we know how the latter goes.

It’s also harder and thus less attractive. I come from a world where combining metrics and context to get a good picture is very important, so I know how difficult it can be. Spreadsheets FTW, man.

One thing that really rings true for me is that stats are not much use when used in isolation from other figures. When used with a combination of other measures, bounce rate can be more useful.

I particularly enjoyed reading your analysis of how bounce rate varies depending on the type of site you run. Things like people visiting everyday, or the bounce rate always being 80% but the 20% who don’t bounce aren’t always the same people, these are very, very good points that few people seem to be aware of.

The next time someone moans about Entrecard generating a high bounce rate, I’ll try and remember to link to your post.

And thanks for the link. :)

Anita, you’re welcome. :) The Blogging for Writers series is aimed at regular writers, fiction or non-fiction, who may not be all that familiar with the ins and outs of some of the aspects of blogging. Probably it should be named “Blogging for Beginners”, but I still aim certain aspects towards writers (most notably in sites I select for examples, for instance) although even that is not so strong.