Comments on: Safari 4 Beta distorts Web Analytics

By: Rene Meissner

Rene Meissner — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:04:51 +0000

@Fulton: the JavaScript solution isn’t working. The document.URL in Top Sites are always the real URL.

To block the incoming requests based on the ‘Public Beta’ part of the user agent string will only help a few weeks. First: it will be gone after the final release (probably with Snow Leopard end of June). Second: it is a typical mistake of the Apple developer, so probably it will be fixed with next beta of Safari.

By: Fulton

Fulton — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:37:29 +0000

Better yet, use server side checks of the URL if you want to reduce JavaScript dependency.

Based on the results the appropriate coding can be applied.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:39:15 +0000

@Fulton: Thanks for the comment. I will be sure to try that out. At this point it makes sense to see these requests to gauge the impact of the virtual visits.

By: Rene Meissner

Rene Meissner — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:14:21 +0000

@Fulton: sounds good! I’ll try it.

By: Fulton

Fulton — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:46:45 +0000

Try adding a bit of JavaScript to check the document.URL of the page in question. If your domain isn’t visible in the URL box then make sure the tracking doesn’t occur. That should reduce the “passive” requests from such a browser.

Then again, you might want to see such requests. In that case use a custom label in Sitestat to signal passive=yes during data collection so that you can segment on it. That also lets you capture if your pages are in an iframe of another site as that too can mess up numbers.

Makes sense?

By: Rene Meissner

Rene Meissner — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:47:37 +0000

@Jason Egan: The problem looks to be more general: web analytics is working only because of the blindness of the majority of the users. They have no clue about collecting of the data on a site or over different sites at all. Additional all used technics are designed to prevent the user to notice, what is really happend.

On the other side the clients of the web analytics companies do accept these technics of obfuscating. They are interested in the data. This means the web analytics business in the current situation is based on the agreement between two of three parties that it is acceptable to hide the real activities against the third party. In Germany we call this “Vertrag zu Lasten Dritter”.

In conclusion: This business needs a clear and easy to use technic for opt-out or much better opt-in. After that, the data will become more scruffy, but they will be still comparable. This is the exact situation which we have at print and tv.

If you say Omniture have to find out a way to remove the ghost measurements from Safari you say also: o man, it is so cool that the users have no clue about web tracking, Apple, please let us stay at this situation.

By: “Probleme” bei Safari 4 und Web Analytics :: smartmetrics - the contentmetrics web analytics blog

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:02:40 +0000

[...] The Data driven Blog und

By: Lewis Francis

Lewis Francis — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:28:08 +0000

Not only are stats misleading due to coverflow/top sites updates, but possibly also due to a new prefetching feature Apple calls “speculative loading”. I’m unclear as to whether the beta precaches linked pages or simply prioritizes non-image data before rendering, but if it’s the former, then we should expect distortion.

By: Chris G

Chris G — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:25:26 +0000

Possibly to get true bounce rate these users have to be filtered out, at least in the early stages.

Possibly, bounce rate as a statistic is just going to have to go away. And stats will have to be adjusted to only report numbers for visits greater than 1 hit/event/pageview/whateveryoucallit.

We’re already doing this kind of reporting (remove the bouncers) — it’s actually a fruitful way to look at the numbers.

By: Jan Exner

Jan Exner — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:43:58 +0000

Hi,

The Firefox FastDial plugin does the same thing, as does Opera’s Speed Dial.

Cheers,
Jan