|
By Peter Cooper
Bored with simple counters? Want more information about the visitors coming to your site? If so, there are several services
available just for you. Extreme-Tracker is one such service which is very easy to sign up with and is free of charge.
You can collect a colossal amount of information about your visitors and the only compromise you have to make is
to have a small Extreme-Tracker graphic on the pages you want tracked.
Signing Up
Signing up is incredibly easy. You only have to provide rudimentary information such as your name, e-mail address,
site name, URL and type of site, your time-zone, a username and a password. You will need to provide a working e-mail address
since Extreme will send you an e-mail containing details to help you get the tracker working.
There is a standard disclaimer on the sign-up page which states you cannot use the tracker on sites containing
pornography, sex-related, or illegal material. They also have the right to discontinue the service at any time,
and if you don't use the code they provide they may also terminate your account. The tracker won't work at all if you
don't use their code so you don't need to worry too much about that. Of course, if you do run a sex or warez site,
don't be surprised if your tracker is terminated.
Installing the Tracker
Once you've entered the required information, you click the Submit button and a generic 'Thank You' page
is returned informing you that you've been sent an introductory e-mail. There is no delay in the sending of this e-mail, and
you should receive it within a minute or two of leaving the site. The e-mail you receive is short and very easy to understand. It confirms the details you entered and
gives you some simple instructions to get the tracker set up on your site. You merely have to visit a certain URL, select what sort of HTML code you want to use for the tracker (frame/table compatible or not) and then paste this code directly into your HTML file.
The site advises that you post the code directly into the HTML file yourself and not use any WYSIWYG software (like FrontPage or Dreamweaver).
The best way to do this is by loading your HTML file into Notepad, copy and pasting the code somewhere in-between
the <BODY> and </BODY> tags.
If you're extremely technophobic you could risk pasting the code into the
HTML section in FrontPage but you run the risk of the tracker not working. If you're using Dreamweaver you can click on the 'HTML Source' button and paste the code in that way.
If you find you cannot get to grips with getting the tracker working, it may be best that you remain with a simple counter or investigate other trackers.
Once the code is integrated into your site, your tracker will start working as soon as someone loads up the page.
You can immediately view your tracker's results by going to the URL specified in the startup e-mail under the 'FIND YOUR REPORTS' section.
Understanding Your Reports
Once you have visited your tracking page (which will have a URL like http://extreme-dm.com/s/?tag=yourusername)
you can start to examine your site's statistics. The tracking site is extremely simple to use due to its simplicity, a major advantage of Extreme's system. You are presented with several different types of results which you can examine, with the most important being the following:
- Summary Page
This page gives you rudimentary information such as how many unique visitors you've received to your site over the last two days. It also gives you the average amount of
unique visitors and reloads your site has had over the entire period that the tracker has been active.
- Geo Tracking Page
Depending on the content of your site, you may be interested to find out where your visitors are coming from around the world. Be warned, however, the Geo Tracker is not
necessarily accurate since people can appear to be using a foreign address even if they're in the same country as you. This is due to the way that domains work. A Dutch host/domain name could be being used in the US! So, don't trust these
results 100%, but they can make interesting viewing nonetheless.
- System Tracking Page
Finding out what system settings your visitors are using can be very useful. You can find out what screen resolutions, browsers and computers they're using. This allows you to
cater more specifically for your viewers. For example, if you find all of your visitors are running at 640x480 with 256 colors, then try not to use a large layout with thousands of nonstandard colors!
- Referrer Tracking Pages
There are two referrer pages simply because there is so much information to be displayed! Referrer information
is information that tells you how visitors arrived at your page (basically, how they were referred). You can find out which pages are linking to yours, and how many of your visitors have arrived at your site via USENET newsgroups or from a link in e-mails.
Extra Features
If you don't mind spending a little cash (starting at $6 per month), you can have a private version of the tracker installed on your site. With this, you get full site-wide tracking
and you don't need to display the Extreme Tracker graphic. Your tracker is also made secure with password protection so that no-one else can see how many visitors you're getting.
Conclusion
Extreme Tracker is a very easy-to-use (if you can handle pasting the supplied code directly into your index.html file) and reliable system. The system went down for a short while in early 2000 but now the upgrades have been completed and the capacity of the site has improved, you shouldn't have any problems.
The disadvantages of the Extreme Tracker are that any visitor to your site can click on the Extreme Tracker button (which, on the plus side, is actually quite small) and look through all of your site's statistics. Of course, they can't get access to any of your private details but they can see how many visitors your site gets and how they get there.
If you're going to need a tracker for a large commercial site, you will probably want to pay the small fee for the private version of the tracker, although for all other sites the free version should prove more than adequate.
Another disadvantage of the tracker is that what you see is what you get. You are stuck with the features that come as standard. This means the system is simple to use, but you cannot get information such as the most popular entry and exit pages (the pages which people first and last visit on your site). You also can't get information about the routes people take through your site, and
other details that more sophisticated Web site statistics programs can provide you with.
In conclusion, the Extreme Tracker is more than adequate for the needs of most Web sites. The sheer simplicity of signing up to and using this service are key points, although if you're a true HTML-phobic you may want to steer clear or get someone to help you install the tracker.
|
