Web Analytics Data Collection: How User Tracking Works

Tracking website user behavior doesn't happen automatically. The web developer needs to install a web analytics program into every page of the website they wish to track.

The Web Analytics Data Collection Process

1. An internet user takes an action that results in a request for a page on a website.

2. When the user navigates to the webpage, the web server receives a request for the information. The server sends this information across the internet to the requesting computer. The web server will then pass on some information about this server request to a data collection center run by the analytics package.

3. The data collection center stores data about this server request and all other server requests until a user requests this data through the analytics report center.

4. The analytics package organizes this data in a variety of ways according to the user’s request.

Note: Raw information is not useful to a webmaster unless it is properly organized and processed.

Supplemental Information on Key Data Points

Identifying the Requester (User Identity)

• The analytics package does not know who you are, but it knows your computer. Analytics can track the path of an individual computer, knowing that a user first hit the homepage, then the men’s clothing page, followed by a specific coat, at which point the user exited.
• If analytics did not identify the computer (e.g., via cookies), it would record all four of those hits as independent visits from different users.
• Analytics can usually track users across sessions by dropping a cookie on that computer, which enables it to recognize a user who has visited previously.
• If the user clears their cookies, this method of cross-session tracking does not work.

Time of Request (Timestamping)

• Analytics cannot construct a user’s path unless it knows which page was seen first, so each server request is time stamped.
  • Timestamps enable the analytics package to calculate how long users are spending on each page.

Navigation Source (Referral Data)

• It is important to know how users are arriving at a website, whether through search engines, direct URL entry, links from other websites, advertisements, and so on.
• Analytics provides this information. For users coming to a site through paid ads, a company can make this data very specific, recording not just that the user came from an ad on Google.com, but recording precisely which ad was clicked (if the site was running multiple campaigns).