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Page Requests

Analysis software will tell you which are your most popular pages. Usually these are home pages and other "hub" pages. It is useful to be able to filter scripts, images, style sheets and other non-content pages from this list. Some software will allow you to consolidate all requests below a hub page or within a directory tree or to produce customized reports. This gives an idea of which areas are most popular with users. Of course the lack of popularity of certain pages may be down to poor site structure, perhaps they are buried too deep, or maybe other parts of the site have good inbound-links?

Deep pages may not even get indexed by search engines. This can be confirmed by looking at the site logs. Over a reasonable period, say several months, it should be possible to identify all the pages that are indexed by a search engine robot and compare this with a list of pages for the site. A well structured site map is a good solution to enable both search engines and users to find all the content on your site.

Some software can tell you which are the least popular pages. The caveat is that a page must have at least one request to feature in this list. You should also have a list of all pages on the site and include those pages with zero requests over a reasonable time frame in this list. If there are important pages on this list, for example pages that generate revenue your site, they may need restructuring or the content updating.

Exit pages show the last pages that users visited. Is there a reason why users jump off at this point? Perhaps the page is a bit of a dead end with dull content and few exciting internal links to follow. Entry pages are usually those that have inbound-links, figure high in search engine results for popular keywords or are bookmarked by users. Can the same tactics that make these pages winners be applied elsewhere, in particular to hub-pages? Orphans or single access pages are pages that visitors see without exploring the site further. These should be entry pages but do not work to entice visitors further into the site. Is the content boring? Is the link structure poor?

Keep a log of the changes that are made to the site and monitor the log files to see what effect these changes have.

Page Requests

See Also