BBStat Reports Description

There are several different types of pages within your BBStat statistics; you can tell which type the current page is by looking at the bold text in the top-left of a report. This documentation will explain how to use each of them separately.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first page seen when you log in, and it gives you an overview of the most critical statistics. For explanations of the individual parts of the Dashboard, look in the Recent Users and Data Table sections below.

Progress over Time

This page visually presents the growth of your website over the last week, as well as the last six months. In the graphs shown, the different-colored bars for each time respectively represent user sessions, unique page views, raw page views, and purchases.

User Sessions is the number of people that visited your website. Each time a person browses your site in what is logically determined to be one sitting, it is counted as a session. For example, if a visitor accessed your Home page, About Us page, Pricing page, and then left, that would be one session. If he returned later that day, it would be counted as a different session.

Unique Page Views is the total number of pages on your website that were viewed in the given time period. However, unlike Raw Page Views, if a user visits the same page twice in a single session, this statistic counts that as one page view.

Raw Page Views is the total number of pages viewed between all of your users. This number does count the same page twice, and hence is a good measure of general website activity, and for planning ahead in terms of hosting plans and servers needed.

Purchases is the number of users who went to a page that you have designated as a purchase page. You can choose which pages these are (usually the "Thank You" or "Confirmation" page) by going to Page Options.

Recent Users

Recent Users is a listing of your last 100 visitors, and the most significant information about them. From left to right, the columns show

IP Address - Think of this as a computer's phone number. Every computer connected to the Internet has its own IP address, although computers sharing a connection through a network (such as in an office) will all have the same IP address, or set of IP addresses. Note that dial-up users will have a different IP Address every time they log on, and that the IP address for residential DSL or Cable users can change every month or so.

Time - This is the time the user's session was started (e.g. the first page was viewed). More specifically, it is the time of our server's clock (currently Eastern Standard Time) when the first page was loaded into the user's browser.

Referrer - This is the website containing the link that the visitor clicked on to arrive at one of your pages (you can click on it to go to the specific page). For example, if John Doe was searching through Google for widget stores, and clicked on your site, John Doe's referrer would be "google.com".

Country - There is a flag of the user's country. The visitor’s country is determined by comparing their IP address to our database (derived from the "official" registry) of the country each IP address was registered in.

Entry Page - The first page in your website that a user viewed.

Raw Page Views - The total number of pages that the user visited. For this statistic, if the same page is visited twice it is counted as two separate pages.

Buy - Whether or not a visitor went to a page that you have designated as a purchase page. You can choose which pages these are (usually the "Thank You" or "Confirmation" page) by going to Page Options.

More Info - designed to see all of the data that BBStat has regarding a specific user. See the Data Tables section below for explanations of these statistics.

Data Tables

This is by far the most useful part of BBStat statistics. Data Tables list the top 100 items for a given statistic, along with four different types of "counts" for each item. The statistics you can get a Data Table for are as following:


Pages - The most trafficked pages of your site. As this is a unique number, the "Users" count (explained below) is the number of user sessions in which the page was visited one or more times. For example, if John Doe visited a page twice in the same sitting, he would only be counted as one in the "Users" counts. Similarly, the "Unique Pages" count for this Data Table would reflect the total unique page views amongst users who visited the given page one or more times. ("Raw Pages" and "Purchases work in the same manner for this Data Table.)

Categories - The categories of the pages visited by your users. Go to Page Options to choose the category each of your pages is in. As with Pages (above), this is a unique count. Hence, if John Doe visited four pages in the Bulk Widgets section of your site, he would only contribute one towards the "Users" count.

Downloads and Redirects - The top downloads and redirects in your site, provided that you have downloads or redirects being used (that were configured on the Add File/Redirect page). As with Pages (above), these are unique counts.

Entry and Exit Pages - The first/last pages your visitors see.

Paths - A "path" is the order of the pages that a visitor viewed in one session. This Data Table shows the top paths in your website. Browsers - The various web browsing software that your visitors use.

Java Support - Whether or not your visitors' browsers support Java Applets (a web design technology commonly used for games, chat-rooms, and some shopping carts).

Operating Systems - The operating systems that your visitors' computers reported they were running.

Windows - Amongst your users running the Windows operating system, the versions of Windows that they were running. This is useful for software websites.

Screen Resolutions - The size of your visitors' monitors, measured in pixels. Web designers will want to know this information when redesigning a website.

Color Depths - The color depths of your visitors' monitors. On a color depth of 8 and 16, non-standard colors may appear dithered.

Countries - The top countries that your users reside in. A user's country is determined by comparing their IP address to our database (derived from the "official" registry) of the country each IP address was registered in.

Languages - The most common languages that your visitors have set as their default language (usually within their operating system's localization settings).

One of BBStat's flagship features is the ability to show four different styles of "counts" for every statistic. In looking at the four numerical columns in a Data Table:


At the bottom of every Data Table is the total Users, Unique Page Views, Raw Page Views, and Purchases in the Data Table. Next to each count in the Data Table, you will see the percent of the respective total that the given number represents. Note that when the Display Type is Averages and Rates, the totals and percents will still reflect the "pure" numbers and not the averages.

Path Charts

The ability to produce Navigational Path Charts is yet another feature that sets BBStat miles ahead of its competition. Path Charts are a more complex method of seeing how visitors browse your website. They show page by page what your visitors clicked on, and where they went from there. The best way to understand this feature is to see it in action--look at this step-by-step example:

When you first see a Path Chart report, you are presented with something resembling the image on the left. Now let's make some use out of it. This shows the four different "entry pages" (the first page a visitor sees) of your website. Apparently, 101 people started on the index.shtml (Home) page, but 64 left while still on that page--maybe we should reconsider some of the verbage there. Anyway, let's "expand" (click on) the index.shtml to find out what people clicked on next after arriving at the Home page.

The new pages listed under index.shtml show us which links people who arrived at that page clicked on. 29 people went to our Learn More page from the Home page, but 6 of those 29 left on that page (Learn More). To find out more about the people who arrived at the Home page and then clicked on Learn More, we will now expand Learn More.

Now we can see what people did on the Learn More page, amongst those who arrived at the Home page. 10 people returned to the Home page--probably through their browser's "Back" button--and all of those people left the site after getting back to the Home page. This screen also tells us that of the people who arrived on the Home page and then went to the Learn More page, 10 went to the Tools page next. Since only 2 of those 10 exited the site on that page, it may be beneficial for us to put a more prominent link to the Tools page on the Learn More page. You should be able to take it from here . . .

Options

The various option pages should be sufficiently documented by the explanation at the top of each page. If you need further help, please contact us.
 

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