Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends, such as one specific page being viewed mostly by people in a particular country. There are many ways to monitor this traffic and the gathered data is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth – not all web traffic is welcome.

Some companies offer advertising schemes that, in return for increased web traffic (visitors), pay for screen space on the site. Sites also often aim to increase their web traffic through inclusion on search engines.

References

• Malacinski, Andrei; Dominick, Scott & Hartrick, Tom (1 March 2001). “Measuring Web traffic” at IBM – retrieved 1 January 2005
• Machlis, Sharon (17 June 2002). “Measuring Web Site Traffic” at ComputerWorld.com – retrieved 1 January 2005
• Ward, Mark (5 May 2003). “The Dangers of Having a Good Idea” – A BBC News look at the case of freelance journalist Glenn Fleishman after his site was linked to from MacCentral – retrieved 7 July 2005

Links

• “Web traffic analysis could save your site” by ZDNet
• “Websites strain under net traffic load” by The Register
• Alexa.com – monitors web traffic of people who use its toolbar. Reports available free.
• Nielsen Netratings – commercial web monitoring service used by large sites. Most reports are by subscription only, but the top 10 list is usually free.
• Introduction and Chapter 1 excerpt from Practical Web Traffic Analysis (ISBN 1904151183, 2002)
• “Web Traffic Analytics and User Experience” by Fran Diamond at boxesandarrows.com

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Reuters – China said it will tighten regulations in its rapidly growing online games sector, requiring game operators to enhance socialist values in their games and hire specialized staff to monitor content.

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