Statisticus, Why and How?
Part I - Introduction

by Pascal Hagen

Contents

Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Measurement Tools
   a. Page Counters
   b. Web Server Logs
   c. Our Own Counter
3. Simple Statistics
4. Adding More Fields
5. Data Normalization
6. Data Gets Valuable

Abstract

This article focuses on basic statistical analysis methods and the techniques to implement them into the web pages.

1. Introduction

   Rebus Sic Statibus *

* A latin doctrine, which states : "rules change when circumstances change".

The idea of interactive web has been kind of derived from the supply and demand balance. You are successful in wall street bussiness as long as you have the ability to drive your customers expectations. By creating a false demans bias, you are stronger in your way.

This is not the way we devevelopers work.

We, the devs and admins, should understand our visitor expectations, and give them what they really need.

In web, we have the tools for persistent data, we have the tools to do math. That means we have the tools to measure the behaviour of our visitors. By analyzing the past data, we may understand the trend and guess the future demand. The methods for forecasting is strongly quantitive and sometimes requires a good command on mathematics. We will not be dealing with regression analysis or curve fitting, but rather be focusing on simple methods such as moving averages and line fitting to analyze our data.

Therefore, understanding the power of statistical analysis is important for us.

Second part of the article focuses on different types of the measurement tools: page counters, web server logs and our own counter.