What is a referring URL or referrer?
| Created |
2009-12-29 |
| Modified |
2009-12-29 |
| Views |
423 |
| Author |
Mircea Cantar
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Solution
Referring URLs are those URLs from which a unique user arrives at your Web
site.
To meet the definition of a referring URL:
· The URL must be one from which a user first arrived at your
site; the very one that led to the start of a new visitor session (or
visit).
· The URL must contain a hypertext link to your site.
· The visitor must have clicked on that hypertext link to arrive
at your Web site.
WebTrends looks for a unique combination of elements and events as it seeks
out, identifies, and records referring URLs. To understand how the process
works, you must first understand what those elements are and how they relate
to one another.
· A unique user is a visitor who can be identified by IP address
or cookie, who can therefore be distinguished from other visitors in the
same log file as different or unique. It is the IP address or cookie
(not people themselves) that WebTrends uses to make that distinction.
· Unique Users (plural) represent the total number who visit your
site during the reporting period.
· A visitor session (or visit) is the range of all activity to
your site by a single unique visitor. By default, a visitor session ends
after 30 minutes of inactivity. A new visitor session begins whenever
WebTrends identifies a new or returning IP address or cookie.
· A referring URL is the URL given credit as that from which users
arrived at your site and began a new visitor session.
Now that you understand the terminology, we can talk about the process
WebTrends follows to identify referring URLs.
· WebTrends sessionizes the data in the log file and arranges them
into an order that allows the program to evaluate visitor data more
easily..
· During analysis, WebTrends drills down through the lines in the
sessionized log file, one event at a time, and identifies the event that
began each visitor session.
· If the event contains referral information, the URL posted in
the referral field gets credit as the referring URL.
· If the event does not contain referral information, WebTrends
gives credit to no referrer.
· WebTrends will count one referring URL (or no referrer) per
visitor session. No more. No less.
You may ask how a page from your Web site will ever get recognized as the
referring URL. There are at least two possibilities:
· A New Visitor Session Starts While a Visitor is at Your Site
Take a fictitious unique user. His name is Bill. Bill is surfing your
site, page after page after page. The phone rings. He steps away from
the computer. He comes back 40 minutes later and continues surfing your
site. What happens?
· Same IP addresses (or cookie); separate visitor sessions.
· When Bill makes his first demand on your web server to
deliver content, the Web server sees his IP address for the first
time. It identifies Bill as a unique user and begins a new visitor
session. The URL Bill just came from gets credit as the referring
URL (if it meets the three conditions at the top of this article).
· Bill then surfed from page to page (same visitor session).
· When Bill stepped away from the computer, and stayed away
for more than 30 minutes, that visitor session ended (30 minutes of
inactivity terminates the visitor session).
· When Bill came back to the computer 40 minutes after
stepping away, the very next demand he placed on the Web server
started a new visitor session. The URL he just came from (a URL on
your site) gets credit as the referring URL (if it meets the
conditions at the top of this article).
· IP Address Changes While User is Surfing Your Web Site.
We will continue to use Bill as the example. If his dynamically-assigned
IP address changes while he is surfing your web site, a new visitor
session will begin as soon as he places his next demand on the Web
server (the old one will te.rminate after 30 minutes of inactivity).
· The URL he just came from (a URL on your site) gets credit as
the referring URL (if it meets the conditions at the top of this
article).
You have a Busy Web Site
· Each demand placed on a Web server to deliver content is
considered a hit (or event). The Web server records each hit as a
separate event, and displays those events as separate lines in the log
file.
· On a busy Web site, the Web server delivers content almost
continuously - several times a second. When more than one event takes
place at the same time, the Web sever stamps each of those events with
the same exact date and time (to the second).
· When WebTrends parses the log file, it has to decide for itself
which of those events happened first. WebTrends does that during the
synchronization process. The event identified as the first of the
visitor session is the one that WebTrends looks at for evidence of
referral information.
· If that event contains reference in the referral field to a page
from your Web site, then that page (your page) gets credit as the
referring URL.
· The busier your Web site, the more often that may happen.
You may also want to know under what circumstances the referral field may be
empty; and why, therefore, WebTrends will record a no referrer. Some of the
reasons behind why that may happen appear below:
· The user (whose activity created the event) came to your Web
site by way of a bookmark.
· The user typed the URL directly into the address box in his or
her web browser.
· The user configured the Web browser to see your page as the
default start page.
· The user came to your Web site after clicking a hypertext link
in e-mail.
· The event that started the visitor session was a hit to
something other than a page, such as an image.
· The user came to your Web site by way of a java-script-based
redirect.
For example, if one site is redirecting to another site by using a
pop-up window (using any number of java script commands), the hit on
your Web server will record no referral information and WebTrends will
record a "no referrer.
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