For content sites, web analysts often look at engagement-related metrics to try to assess whether or not visitors are having a successful visit. After all, there is no transaction like a purchase, to tell us that something “good” happened, if not for our visitor then at least for our business. We may look at metrics [...]

I found out recently that visitors using Internet Explorer 8 on a site that is not compatible with that browser, can exhibit multiple user agent strings during one visit. This is because of a compatibility view provided in IE8 that makes it look and act mostly (but not exactly) like IE7, for sites that don’t [...]

If you are a web analyst, and you have ever had to Google “zoo porn” as part of your job, you would understand why I loathe the idea of targeted advertising based on user searches. The terms I’ve searched as part of my job have gotten me on the net-nanny list of every employer I’ve [...]

So, you have decided to invest somewhere between four and six digits in a special analysis from your web analytics vendor. Having been on the performance end of that deal for several years, I would like to offer some insights that can make the engagement more valuable to you.
1. If the data-pulling part of the [...]