Measuring web traffic:
Web traffic is measured to see the popularity of web sites and individual pages or sections within a site.Web traffic can be analysed by viewing the traffic statistics found in the web server log file, an automatically-generated list of all the pages served. A hit is generated when any file is served. The page itself is considered a file, but images are also files, thus a page with 5 images could generate 6 hits (the 5 images and the page itself). A page view is generated when a visitor requests any page within the web site – a visitor will always generate at least one page view (the main page) but could generate many more.Tracking applications external to the web site can record traffic by inserting a small piece of HTML code in every page of the web site.
Web traffic is also sometimes measured by packet sniffing and thus gaining random samples of traffic data from which to extrapolate information about web traffic a whole across total Internet usage.
Increase web site traffic:
Web traffic can be increased by placement of a site in search engines and purchase of advertising, including bulk e-mail, pop-up ads, and in-page advertisements. Web traffic can also be increased by purchasing non-internet based advertising.
If a web page is not listed in the first pages of any search, the odds of someone finding it diminishes greatly (especially if there is other competition on the first page). Very few people go past the first page, and the percentage that go to subsequent pages is substantially lower. Consequently, getting proper placement on search engines is as important as the web site itself.
There are a number of other things you can do to increase your web traffic including but not limited to building link popularity, webrings, offering free e-books or articles and classified advertisements.
Of the above mentioned items, perhaps the easiest one to do is building link popularity. This can be accomplished by writing e-mails to sites similar to yours and asking if they would link to your site. The second way of increasing your web traffic is writing to e-zines or to free article sites. There are many sites which will accept your written material, the catch is that you are giving it away for free. The benefit, however, is that you get to include a link to your site in the article, meaning every time someone clicks on your link, it brings free traffic to your site. Pixel ads can bring traffic to your site but usually will not get you a targeted audience.
Sudden popularity
A sudden burst of publicity may accidentally cause a web traffic overload. A news item in the media, a quickly propagating gmail, or a link from a popular site may cause such a boost in visitors (sometimes called Slash dot effect) that overwhelms the site.
Web sites have been forced to close after an unexpected mass increase of traffic, particularly those run by an individual leasing the bandwidth from an ISP or hosting site. Some sites backed by large companies running their own servers have also been caught out by the problems of overpopularity. When first announced, the Vision of Britain Through Time site, containing information taken from the 1901 UK census, was advertised on numerous television programmes and causing such interest that the site had to be taken offline until different arrangements were made to cope with the traffic. The site was hosted by a project at the University of Edinburgh and they had not foreseen the amount of bandwidth and the server load that would be required. Ironically, by the time the site was able to cope with the traffic both the interest and the free advertisements of the site had greatly slowed, giving them excess capacity.
