NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Surfing w/Graphics Off - Rising Trend?
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Surfing w/Graphics Off - Rising Trend?
Randy Cosby (dcosby_at_infowest.com)
Fri, 19 Dec 1997 11:27:29 -0700
On Wednesday, December 17, 1997 1:34 PM, Claire Schaeffer
[SMTP:cschaeffer_at_provenedge.com] wrote:
> FWIW, I've calculated the numbers of surfers with graphics turned off a
> variety of ways (not taking caching into consideration, considering
> caching, the effect of bookmarking inside pages and not traveling
> through the entire site, etc. etc.) and the amazing thing is, no matter
> how I calculate the numbers, when I chart the percentages of people
> (using monthly increments) surfing with graphics off, the *trend* is
> almost identical from formula to formula.
Interesting. I wonder how you "considered caching"? If you have a site
people return to often, this trend could be explained by browser caching.
As your site is more of a sales page, this doesn't seem to be the case.
Are the graphics in question repeated on multiple pages, and are you
adding pages regularly? I would try an experiment like this:
Pick two graphics that display ONLY ONCE on your site.
For the first image, change your image tag to something like <img
src="somegif.gif?randomstring">. Randomstring should change each time it's
loaded. If you have some sort of server-side includes turned on, you should
be able to put something like the unix time string after the question mark.
Everything after the question mark should be ignored by the server, but the
client doesn't know that.
3. Leave the second image unchanged during the period.
Compare the stats on the two images. The first image should defeat
browser-based caching, as well as proxy caching. If the stats are still
similar, and the trend continues, you're on to something. If not, the
trend was caused at least in part by caching.
New IAB advertising standards say we should be looking at ad "insertions",
or how many times the html "img src" string was downloaded. Many sites use
"impressions", or how many times a banner image file was downloaded.
You'll see big discrepancies between the numbers depending on whether the
server uses "cache-busting" for ad banners, or if they measure ad banner
downloads at all. I personally don't count the ad as an impression unless
the image file was downloaded. My advertisers don't pay for ads served to
people with images shut off.
Randy Cosby <dcosby_at_infowest.com>
Webmaster: www.32bit.com * www.devshed.com * www.browsercheck.com
Vice President, InfoWest Global Internet Services, Inc.
435 674-0165 / Fax: 435 674-9734
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