Traffic Statistics… what do they mean?

Many webmasters brag about the traffic they can generate to their websites, how many visitors they get daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It often sounds very impressive but there are a few things you need to consider with traffic and traffic statistics. This is also very important if you’re looking to buy a website.

1. Traffic Bouncing: It is all good and well getting 1000s of hits per day, but if they all visit your website, and then leave 2 seconds later, that is somewhat of a waste. When this happens its referred to as traffic bouncing. If you find this is happening to you, you need to analyze a few things. For people to bounce pretty quickly there needs to be a large lack of interest in the site/design/layout. Something has to be turning people off the site. If buying a website, investigate the traffic stats to see if they are bouncing often before purchasing.

2. Traffic Hits Programs/Purchased: Another reason people could have high traffic statistics could be due to them participating in traffic exchange programs or buying traffic hits from a website. The problem with this kind of traffic is they often have no interest in the website, and the people viewing the site are just visiting the site to gain tokens/credits that can be used to get them traffic or exchange for money. This kind of traffic will only often result in them viewing your site for 10-30 seconds and it is often very pointless. If purchasing a site make sure you check the visits/traffic history. If there is a sharp increase in traffic recently this could be the reason, they may be purchasing traffic the make the stats look better.

3. Advertisements: When selling advertisements, traffic amount matters a lot. You can charge a lot for high traffic ad spots on your website as people want exposure. When buying advertisements, make sure you consider the above points.