Why page impressions statistics are pointless.

'Lies, damned lies and statistics'

Page impression statistics tell you very little, if anything, and can so easily be expanded to present a position that can be used to fool some of the people some of the time.

So if you want high page counts how could you get them:-

• Structure your site so that nothing is quick to get to, so they have to go through many page clicks to get anywhere.
• Split pages, so articles and the like are in sections, and a number of pages have to be used to read one item.
• Include picture galleries, displays, where to get out you have to go through the set of pages.
• Offer something free, free picture storage, free discussion boards, free draws, ...    This will bring people through looking for something free, not at all interested in looking seriously at other offerings.
• Put details of a competition, or entry form on the website, probably a special landing page.
• Offer a free downloadable e-book or a dozen, they are easy to get and can be promoted in a thousand ways.
• Have a few landing pages that can't be reached from your normal pages that have items like sex, porn and similar that people will search for and get to, adding to the stats, but not actually getting to the system as such.
• Have landing pages on a wide range of subjects, any old topic and a few links plus some Google ads, all those passing through count.
• Run site testing software that constantly checks all website pages for access, this will tell you if your server is not fully available, but add hundreds of thousands of imprisons to your stats.
• Put some small graphic animals in some pages and have a competition for children to find them, and promote this via schools etc. to find these they will need to click on many pages, so many children times many pages earns lots of page clicks.
• Involve in site page calls, so that to see each page it goes through several that you don't see to arrive, adding up the stats.
• Arrange websites with pages or part pages called from sub webs.
• Use in page, pages to up the numbers.
• Time out refreshes causing pages to reload after a set time.
• Add more than one count to a page, for example count different aspects, text, graphics, images, frames, borders,........
• Constantly submit to search and directory sites there are thousands of them, and their robots will go through your site many times.
• Include a free service or download other webmasters can use on their site, and their traffic gets counted as well.
• Do deals with other website operators, to cross pull some pages.

Want unique visitors then look at redirecting software, or write a programme that feeds random numbers.

I think, by now you understand why I would not base much on page stats.

There is also no evidence to show that camping by the side of a dual carriageway would produce you any sales, so while passing traffic may be beneficial in some cases, generally its only valid if its people interested in what you have to offer.

For this reason when looking to advertise on any website, you need to look first at the content, and ask yourself a few questions

1. Is it of high quality,
2. Will people feel that a recommendation from this site is worth anything.
3. Will the people who will be looking at this information be seriously interested in what you have to offer.
4. Will a reasonable percentage of these people be able to afford what you are offering

The ideal site is one where what you have to offer is the logical next step, for example someone looking for a place to go to photograph something a way from home finding a hotel or guest house in the area, someone interested in colour calibration finding equipment or services that do this, someone looking for training in a specific subject finding someone offering exactly that.

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Why page impressions statistics are pointless.