Traffic. What's the deal?

[JuniperPark]

I've been in web development for almost 10 years, and selling domain names for about 3. I understand the added value of a name with many links and highly placed listings in the SEs.

What I DON'T get is the obsession with low scale traffic/type-ins. There is no real way to tell if a domain name page request was typed in, requested by a spider/crawler, hit by a HEAD check, or other program. I've written software in the past (for valid applications) to pretend to be certain browsers or crawlers, or pretend to be a type-in or refer-back to a place it didn't come from. ** IT IS EASY TO DO **.

In fact, the current worm is causing page traffic (I suspect spam-checkers are validating domain athenticity), but looking at my own logs I see the log spammers are about 20% of traffic, and the email ciphons and other immoral 'bots are roughly another 20%. Throw in the fact that one could script his own page hits, and you have to come to the conclusion that traffic stats of less than a certain number are completely worthless.

That's why I don't report traffic. Am I wrong here somewhere?

- Dale

 

[JoDomains]

Somehow I tend to disagree. Reporting the traffic depends on how good is your reporting script. Lot of professional counter scripts count the real visitors by placing cookies, and recording IP addresses. Some scripts can trace how long each visitor stays in your website. from where they came, their settings like screen size, color depth, operating system, browser ID. Most scripts distinguish between "hits" and "uniquie visits". Your website can get 10'000 hits from only one uniquie visitor. Some scripts contains databases for search engine bots their IP addresses so it can report their traffic under a different section than the visitors traffic.

Of course there are always ways to cheat the system, but the general numbers of the hits, uniquie visitors, page views give you an indication about the traffic the website gets. If a website gets 1000 page views per day and receive 900 uniquie visitors, then you know that the visitors don't spend much time at the website and you can suspect that the traffic is redirected from "Pay per surf" programs. For example Alexa report that dnforum.com gets 32.7 page views PER user. That means that this website recieve great traffic and people stay in the website for a while. Traffic reporting is a very important aspect of website administration, and can't be ignored!

 

[JuniperPark]

Lwgik, I appreciate your input.

Assuming that the domain seller isn't boosting his own traffic numbers, there are others out there who are, for a number of reasons. I get several hundred pageviews/day from about 3 hosting companies, who essentially are leaving ads in the log. If I didn't know any better, I would report those as 'traffic'.

If the crawlers (good ones and bad ones), many use a HUGE number of IPs (several blocks of 255 IPs) so counting unique IPs is *not* a valid measure of real users.

I'm familiar with the cookie tracking some places use, but again, very easily spoofed and circumvented. It's easy to build a script to repeat back whatever cookies are sent.

I haven't seen any scripts that actually time page views, but I see the web log software programs that make HUGELY inaccurate projections based on time between pages. I frequently have many browser windows open (I have a 2-monitor setup), and jump between sites for hours. The web log software will make the assumption that I spend 50 hours a day on various websites.

That brings me to 'type-ins'... I have some AWEFUL domain names which would never be entered bv a sane human, and by the counting standards most people use, get several type-ins per day. These can only be crawlers/spambots and the like who are hiding their referbacks and showing browser-like agent-strings.

All of these combined are a significant percentage of traffic.

Ok, rant over

 

[JoDomains]

JP,

you are right, as I said before there are always ways to cheat the system, BUT when you buy a developed website or just a domain name, you are not looking ENTIRELY for the traffic. You are looking at the whole image. You never see a sell/buy thread the reads :

I want domain name related to the bikes industry. If the domain name gets from 0-10000 hits per month I'll pay up to $500, if it gets $10001 - 50000 I'll pay $1000...etc

Traffic is important when you buy a domain if you want to link the domain to an ad network or affiliate website, many people ask for the Raw Log files to verify the traffic. But when I'm buying a domain name to develop it into a website, I don't care too much about previous traffic because the new website will need new traffic. If I'm buying a developed website and I plan to continue with the same website/idea, then yes I can verify the real traffic through the raw logs.
Your traffic provide you with vital information about your visitors that you can't ignore if you want a successful website imho

 

[ShaunP]

type-in traffic is a myth ... except for names like sex.com ... is that right guys .. in your opinion?

Shaun

 

[Steen]

Originally posted by aactive
type-in traffic is a myth ... except for names like sex.com ... is that right guys .. in your opinion?

Shaun

imo.

You are wrong.

Although I question peoples figures when they say "___ uniques and all are typeins!".

I think people are exagerating or dont know what they are doing.

 

[ShaunP]

Originally posted by devildude8989



imo.

You are wrong.

Although I question peoples figures when they say "___ uniques and all are typeins!".

I think people are exagerating or dont know what they are doing.

...and that means what Devil?

Shaun

 

[Steen]

You dont understand my post?

I think it is rather simple..

 

[Steen]

ok i will clarify.

When people post in a sales thread "this domain gets ___ uniques daily and all are from typeins" i htink they are :

A. Lyeing
B. Exagerating
C. Dont know what they are counting (ie. hits/page views etc..)

 

[ShaunP]

Originally posted by devildude8989
ok i will clarify.

When people post in a sales thread "this domain gets ___ uniques daily and all are from typeins" i htink they are :

A. Lyeing
B. Exagerating
C. Dont know what they are counting (ie. hits/page views etc..)

Actually .. sadly, you are probably 80% right.

Shaun

 

[URLtrader]

Originally posted by aactive
type-in traffic is a myth ... except for names like sex.com ... is that right guys .. in your opinion?

Shaun

Type in also comes for city names or product names (Miami.com , Shoes.com ). Other than that lot of keywords for different industries also get typed in .

It makes more sense to buy a generic domain and make it popular than buying a name with (doubtful) traffic or keep on paying to search engines the rest of your life (and get kicked to page 2 because few of your competitors start paying more).

IMHO buying a generic name is the best bet (and I do have lots of them). :wink: