Monthly History

The Monthly History has two parts: a bar chart and a table of values. The values
in the chart and the numbers in the table correspond to the Summary
information for each month. Each column of the chart has a total at the bottom
that appears on the earlier –Year– Summary. As with the –Year– Summary, the
total of Unique Visitors is not accurate. (This is the problem discussed near the
end of Chapter 2.)
In the bar chart, each colored bar is in proportion to other bars of that color.
However, there is no correlation between different colored bars. In Figure 3-1,
the tallest yellow bar and the tallest turquoise bar are the same height. But the
tallest yellow bar is 18,530 visits, whereas the tallest turquoise bar is 173,849 hits.
The Monthly History has a simple purpose. It exists solely so that you can
compare traffic numbers from month to month. Why did traffic double in February?
Why did it drop off in March?
These questions are as much business related as site related. In the specific
case at SkateFic.com, the 2006 Winter Olympics were in February, driving
interest in figure skating through the roof for a short period. But then, despite
TV coverage of the world championships in March, traffic fell as casual fans
went back to their regularly scheduled programs. With eight years of historical
data behind us, it’s easy to see that the pattern of activity was the same during
the 1998 and 2002 Olympics.
This is another benefit of having metrics. You can discern both short-term
and long-term patterns, sometimes just by looking. Does your web site peak in
August every year? Did editorial coverage in a major magazine spike traffic in
January? Do you get a lot of traffic around a particular real-world event? What
are the long-term and short-term trends?
Another way of looking at traffic, by days and hours, is shown in Figure 3-2.