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Click-Through Tracking for Web Design

Click-Through Tracking for Web Design. How? and Why? Michele Potter ASEE/ELD 2003. Maybe I should start with What? . Counting the instance of a user clicking on a specific link.

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Click-Through Tracking for Web Design

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  1. Click-Through Tracking for Web Design How? and Why?Michele Potter ASEE/ELD 2003

  2. Maybe I should start withWhat? • Counting the instance of a user clicking on a specific link. • “...the measure of effectiveness of one site's ability to persuade a visitor to go to another site.” - www.techencyclopedia.com • Differentiation from Session Tracking What is Click-through tracking?

  3. Questions? • How many of you have • Statistics program (Logfile Analyzer) • open source or commercial • click-through • Session tracking • How many of you refer to these in order to make decisions about web design

  4. Statistics Packages - Commercial Jill Garland UC • Many more from $99 - thousands of dollars Mamak - Click Tracking System 2 = $99http://www.mamakscripts.com/mcts/index.php

  5. Statistics Packages - Free • Analog • Pure logfile analyzer • Most popular • http://www.analog.com • Webvisit • Perl5 script that analyses logfiles for visitor information • Session Tracking Tool • http://mikespub.net/tools/aWebVisit/ • More...

  6. 10 minutes to cheap CTT • Method: Link redirects to a “dummy page” which you then analyze for page hits • <META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0;URL=http://lib.ucr.edu/clicks/link1.htm"> • “Dummy page” redirects to actual location of document sought. Dummy Page(link36 or page1link1...) Destination Click Original Page Dummy Page(link37 or page1link2...) Destination

  7. Cheap... slide 2 • Drawbacks • Can’t use the back button • Every time the user tries to use the back button, they generate a false click • User cannot see the actual destination URL

  8. A Few Days to Cheap CTT • A database to track every time a link is clicked • Systems Involvement • All links redirect to one page with a script for parsing the redirect Destination Dummy Page(parsing) Click Original Page Destination Destination

  9. Pretty Cheap... slide 2 • Drawbacks? • Our systems department was able to allow use of the back button • User still does not see destination URL

  10. Why? Experimentation • Where do users click? • What colors do they click? • What words do they respond to? • How much of your audience cares about…? • Why aren’t users clicking on what they should?

  11. Why? Off-site links • Vendor databases • Other library catalogs • External informational links

  12. Why? Real Estate Allocation • How do we know if a link “deserves its real estate?” • What click-throughs can do • illustrate proper “context” (I.E. where to put certain information for best use) • What click-throughs can’t do • determine the value of the information users are getting (e.g. misleading links)

  13. Demonstration

  14. Demonstration 2

  15. Site Map 13 9 12 1 8 5 7 6 2 4 3 11 10

  16. Let the games begin! • Two specific Implementations at UCR • IIPA and IIMP -> (Full-Text Performing Arts e-Index) Before name change 7 and 4 clicks in 3 days After name change 44 and 26 in 3 days • What were users really looking for when they did a site search?

  17. Attributions • Dana Nguyen and Albert Morita in our systems office for implementing our CTT. • Jill Garland at Berkeley for creating a nice chart of various statistics packages.

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