INTERNET TRAFFIC

by Pam

It's time to reset the statistics counter. Not the hit counter at the bottom of the website but the hidden tracker that runs behind the scenes. The one that generates the world traffic map to the left that shows the traffic we've received from the cities from around the world. We've had alot of activity in a year.

I wondered how much traffic we received on our website so I installed a free statistics counter about a year ago. It returned interesting information but I was surprised how invasive a statistics program can be. It goes beyond counting hits and actually gives referral URLs, IP addresses and search engine inputs. We get most of our referrals from CSC's website and from Google searches. It's interesting to see the search terms people plug into Google that takes them to our website. WRBC and Butterflyer.org send us quite a few referrals as well. The average person visiting from the Sunfishracing referral spends about 20 minutes on the website.

It's even possible to actually determine from the IP address every single time someone visits the website and where they go and how long they stay. Way too invasive. Fortunately, we have enough traffic that spending any sort of time looking at details just isn't feasible and I simply look at trends. Most of you have the necessary tools in place that your IP address shows your IP provider's address and not your personal address but the hidden "header" information in your email addresses can be matched which makes identification possible. I found it mildly interesting to learn this information but extremely disturbing to find that every single website I visit can find out more information about me than I ever intended. Today, I'm resetting all the data to blank and we'll see what the new year brings.

Take some time to investigate whether your computer's settings broadcast information about who and where you every time you go online.