Re: Mini-logos in browsers' "favorite links" files?
> The neat customer data trick with favicons is this: If
> you use WebTrends or other log analysis software, you can
> track how many times favicon.ico has been called and keep
> track of how many people are bookmarking your site.
I'm not sure if this is exactly true -- in some cases, the
favicon shows up in the browser address bar when you visit
a site, even if you don't have the site bookmarked. What
cases? Good question -- I haven't been able to figure
out a pattern! Sometimes there's one there, sometimes not
-- even on my own site, where I know I have a favicon
installed, it only shows up in the address bar sometimes.
And I don't think favicon works in all browsers -- I
think it's an Internet Explorer only type of feature, but
I don't know which versions of the browser have support
for this.
> Knowing what percentage of your traffic bookmarks your
> site is a very important customer metric - one you can
> track and improve on over time.
True! But I wouldn't trust the calls to favicon as the
whole tracking mechanism for this. I use WebTrends, and
I don't remember any setting that says "show me the number
of times this image was called from a bookmark". I think
it (and other log analysis software) just show the number
of times an image was called. If anyone from a log analysis
software company is on the list, maybe they can tell us
more about how bookmarks are logged -- I think they might
just go into the log as not coming from any referrer.
Tamra Heathershaw-Hart
HC Studios: Experts in "headache-free" web development
Web Design * Animation * Site Promotion * Engineering
http://www.hcstudios.com/ | tamra@hcstudios.com
Phone: 503-399-4774 | Fax: 888-365-6949 (toll-free)
Received on Fri Nov 30 2001 - 11:57:20 CST
