Pages-URL

The Pages-URL report (see Figure 3-8) lists the top 25 URLs by the number of
times that page was viewed. Links across the title bar will take you to the Full
List of all URLs recorded for your site.
The Entry and Exit links (see Figure 3-9) go to pages showing the full list of
URLs sorted by the most entries and most exits, respectively.
The Entry and Exit lists, as with many of the secondary pages, allow you to
filter the list with Regular Expressions. A Regular Expression (abbreviated
RegEx) matches patterns using a special syntax that we’ll discuss in more
depth in Chapter 6. Also in Figure 3-9, the RegEx .*/serials/.* matches all
the URLs that contain the directory /serials/. At SkateFic.com, the serials
directory contains all the currently running serial novels. From a business
standpoint, knowing how to filter the Pages-URL list gives you the ability to
look at different sections of your web site —that is, if your web site is structured
so that different sectors of your business correspond to different structural
parts of your site.
What if they don’t? What if you use variables to steer people to different parts
of your site? For example, in Figure 3-9, the top two URLs are for /chapters/
index.php. While not immediately apparent, those two URLs can represent
hundreds of individual chapters, because each of them comes with a variable
such as: /chapters/index.php?Chapter=23 for Chapter 23 of the serial.
A business with an online catalogue might have one catalogue page that
uses an item number to pull item descriptions from a database. A site that uses
a content management system (CMS) may have very few actual pages and
may only differentiate pages by a series of variables in the URL. See any of
those variables in the URLs that AWStats shows? Nope?
We don’t either.
This is another one of those things that AWStats doesn’t do that you’ll find
you need. It’s great to know how many people read chapters of one serial or
another (or read articles or visit the catalogue). But it’s not as helpful as knowing
that 2,000 people read the newest chapter (or article) and that 337 people
read 10 other chapters or that 1,500 people looked at the week’s sale item and
that 1,800 people looked at a bunch of other catalogue items.
Here’s another important piece of information that you both need and
don’t.
The /figure-skating-trivia/ directory contains a single page with
numerous short biographies of figure skaters. It has turned out to be a top
search term for SkateFic.com. It’s also the most visited page on a regular basis.
Look at the Entry and Exit numbers. You would think they’d have some
relationship to one another, but they don’t. A person could enter the site on
another page, poke around a while, find the trivia page, read for a while and
then leave for another site (or a cuppa joe) —no entry, one exit, one view. A
person could do the reverse, enter at the trivia page, exit elsewhere—one entry,
no exit, one view. A person could enter on a different page, read some, check out
the trivia, and end up reading one of the poems in a different part of the site—
no entry, no exit, one view. Finally, a person could enter the site on the trivia page
and leave immediately—a “bounce”—one entry, one exit, one view. That’s the
person we want to know more about! Do we know anything about them? No.
The trivia page is only a draw insomuch as it lures people further into the site.
The trivia page on SkateFic.com is like a controversial article on a content site or
a sale item on an e-commerce site. It’s all well and good that people look at
that page, but what you really want is people to be pulled further into the site.
It’s that supercheap sale item at the grocery store, a loss leader. How effective
your loss leader is depends on how many people get further into your site
from that page.
AWStats can’t tell you that. It can say how many people viewed a page. It
can say how many people entered there. It can say how many people exited.
What it doesn’t say is how many people saw that page and only that page.
That particular analytical association is a crucial one.