Knowledge Base
Gathering Data On Website Visitors
Log Files
Log files are files on the web server that keep track of domain types, time of access, keywords used, and search engines used. The keywords, for example, tell the merchant what the visitor was looking for when he came to the website.
Forms
Registration and purchase forms are the two most effective ways of gathering site visitor information. They capture customer-provided personal information (name, address, date of birth, e-mail address, etc.). Online retailers place links and contests on the homepage to capture visitor preferences via forms. The more interaction with the customer, the more information can be gathered about their tastes and preferences.
Cookies
A cookie is a small piece of information that is sent to the visitor's browser when he access a particular site. When it arrives, the browser saves it to the hard disk. When the visitor returns to the site, some of the stored information will be sent back to the merchant's web server along with the new request. Cookies are standard components for tracking visitor activities on most websites. They tell retailers who is a first-time visitor and where repeat visitors have been within the website.
In general, cookies are harmless. Some cookies have expiration dates, and when that date comes, the visitor's browser simply erases it from the hard drive. Cookies with an expiration date are generally referred to as persistent cookies. Cookies that will last as long as the browser stays open are referred to as session cookies. When the browser is closed, session cookies simply disappear.
However, cookies make a lot of people uncomfortable. They invade people's privacy. Unlike e-mail, cookies are hidden from the visitor's view. They allow the merchant to recognise individual users instead of just machines. There are, however, a number of things that a cookie cannot tell anyone - whether more than one person uses the same computer to view a website, the person's name, age, etc..