Click here to read Web Analytics History – Part 1
In my last web analytics history post I mentioned that the reason we ended up switching to from web log files to cloud based analytics (Hitbox was the first one I can remember) is that the server logs were getting too big when combined together. A million visitor site was getting at least 10 gigabytes of “hit” data, and the old Webtrends reports could not run properly. Remember back in 2000 you had to move files around at pre-gigabyte rates, so just file moving was a big issue.
Sampling Data Is Never Going To Be Accurate
Anyway, this leads to what I refer to as “sampling”. Sampling means that you will never have complete accuracy in the data. But just the fact I could dive deep into the page views and visitor data through my browser for the first time was amazing. I was able to get some basic KPIs (Key Performance Indices) for the first time. There was no turning back, real analytics for the web was here to stay.
SEO before there was SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
So, in late 2001 when I was a web analyst on a big ecommerce company, we had just founded Pre-Dating.com, the speed dating company. We found out right away that how we placed our text into title tags, keywords, meta tags, H1, H2 meant life or death of our fledgling speed dating company. Since then, if you put the key word terms “Speed Dating Fort Lauderdale” or “Speed Dating Seattle” or most any city, our site comes up pretty high in the natural search if not #1. Now we have some advantage with the aging of the domain “Pre-Dating.com“. Sometime around early 2005, I was working on a web analytics gig for VictoriasSecret.com using Coremetrics as well as abcdistributing.com, when somebody pointed out to me that SEO is now a growing consulting field. I understand the value of it, but not to the extent that the market valued SEO. I was and I am an expert at SEO because of my experience. A few of the guys who chatted with me about SEO became innovators in the field and some had multi-million dollar SEO companies within a year or 2. Did not see that coming.
Anyway, the final part of this is Web Analytics was kind of pushed aside for these SEO cowboys who came to town and were all about SEO, which was getting more natural traffic, sometime the right way and sometimes black hat. We were experts at this already, but the SEO guys and gals rode this train from the station. Sadly enough the SEO people have relegated Web Analytics to a minor task. That would be a big mistake in most of these large enterprises. If you are in a business that is serious about your data and your site, then it is critical you get somebody working on it today. You need strategic thinking, business management skills, understanding of programming and web technology (helps to be a developer), being a writer and presenter. That is the skills we bring. StrategicPoints can do this for you. We have over 20 years of web experience and we can do the job. Contact us through this form below:
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