Q: How can I provide my clients access to HitLens reports?
A: If you enable guest access to the reports, you can let your clients view their web stats in real time. Guest passwords allow the Web CEO users to view traffic reports while withholding permission to change HitLens settings.
To give your client access to HitLens reports from his/her location, you should:
1. Select the client's site in Project Manager,
2. Click "HitLens Settings",
3. Move to the 'Passwords' tab and set the Guest password for this site.
Note: You can follow the same steps to set the eCommerce password. If you do this, the user will be prompted to enter the eCommerce password in order to have access to the eCommerce and Campaigns reports.
Your client should:
1. Download and install Web CEO, and register a Free account.
2. Add the site in question as a new project.
3. Open Project Manager, select this site, and click "Activate HitLens".
4. Click "OK" to confirm the stats activation.
5. Go to the menu Features > HitLens.
6. Select his/her site in the Project Selector.
7. Enter the Guest password for HitLens when he/she is prompted to.
As a result, your client will be able to view the traffic reports on his/her PC, but he/she will not be able to change the HitLens settings.
Q: How do I activate HitLens correctly?
A: For HTML-based sites, the wizard-driven script setup makes the HitLens activation a smooth and easy process. Open Project Manager, select your site, and press Activate HitLens. Follow the steps presented in the wizard.
Step 1: Plan. Select the HitLens service plan you need. If you want your transactions and ad campaigns tracked, you will most likely select eCommerce.
Step 2: Passwords. Set the Master password and optional Guest and eCommerce passwords.
Step 3: Pages. Select webpages stored on your computer as the local copy of your website and enable HitLens by inserting the tracking code into the page's source code.
Step 4: Names and Groups. Give custom names to individual pages. If you need statistics for groups of pages, arrange them into content groups. If not, skip this step, and your webpages will be reported under their file names.
Step 5: eCommerce. Assign transactions to the Thank You pages. You can also enter the order amount if your transaction is expected to result in an order.
Step 6: Exclusions. You may exclude your own visits from statistics by entering your IP address in the IP filter or by setting up a cookie.
Step 7: Custom tracking. Learn how to set up special tracking services such as tracking downloadable files, ad campaigns, dynamic webpages, and server load balance.
Step 8: Advanced settings. Set up URL masks and adjust the location of webceo.js. The URL masks give you advanced control of which parts of the domain are considered part of your site. If you cannot put the webceo.js file in the domain root (i.e. www.yourdomain.com/webceo.js), then adjust the path on the Advanced tab. Don't forget to insert the tracking code into your pages again.
Being an external file, webceo.js is another part of the tracking code. This means that it is referenced from the embedded tracking code and its variables are not site-specific, so it doesn't usually require any modifications (you can even download it from http://www.webceo.com/webceo.js and upload it to your site).
After you have added the HitLens tracking code to your pages, make sure to upload pages with the new tracking code. If you need help, our specialists can assist you for an additional fee. Depending on the difficulty, the cost may vary from $100 to $300.
Q: How do I deactivate HitLens?
A: To deactivate HitLens, you should do the following:
1. Open Project Manager (File > Project Manager)
2. Select your site and click `HitLens Settings`.
3. On the `Plan` tab of the HitLens wizard, choose `Deactivate HitLens` and then hit `Yes`.
The program will send a command to the Web CEO Datacenter to delete the HitLens database of your site and will change this site's HitLens status to `Not Active`.
To complete the HitLens deactivation, you must also remove the HitLens embedded tracking code from your web pages and the external script (webceo.js) from your web server to stop loading the Web CEO tracking servers.
Note: when you deactivate HitLens, the database is erased on the server, and you can no longer retrieve your reports. If you need to keep the data that HitLens has already collected, be sure to export your reports using the File > Export command.
If you have more than one site with HitLens activated, repeat the procedure for each site.
Q: How do you calculate the number of unique visitors?
A: Unique visitor tracking is mainly based on cookie technology. If the visitor's browser does not support cookies, an alternative visitor identification procedure is used. The visitor is identified by IP address, user agent, browser language settings, etc.
Take a simplified example. Imagine having only one visitor to our site. This visitor arrives at the home page. After the tracking script has run and the HitLens variables have been passed to the tracking system, HitLens makes a record of this visitor: one visitor, one visit, and one page view. If the visitor then goes to another page of our site, only the page views count increases: one visitor, one visit, and two page views. The visitor leaves the site, comes back after a few hours on the same day, and views only the home page. The tracking system will update the information about this visitor as follows: one visitor, two visits, and three page views. The next day, the visitor returns to your site and browses three pages. The tracking system will log on that day: one visitor, one visit, three page views. You will see these stats exactly as described if you run daily HitLens reports for our imaginary site.
The weekly number of unique visitors will be calculated as a sum total of the daily unique visitors. So the expiry period for a unique visitor is set to one day -- the numbers of daily unique visitors will be added to make up the weekly, monthly, and yearly numbers of unique visitors.
Note for our customers who are used to our previous method of unique visitor calculation: we've decided to change it for the sake of better reconciliation. Our previous method was non- standard and gave rise to many questions, though it was more accurate and objective.
Q: I don`t have a local copy of my site. How can I activate HitLens for it?
A: If you don't have a local copy of your site, you have two alternatives:
1. If your site pages are not composed ones (generated from different files based on some dynamic technology), you can download them to your PC and use the HitLens wizard to insert the tracking code and set up tracking. You can then use the Web CEO Uploader to copy the page files from your PC to your web server over FTP.
2. If for some reason downloading page files does not seem reasonable, you can insert the script manually. Follow the below instructions on manual script insertion.
If your site uses some dynamic technology, the tracking code will need customization to extract values from your databases and populate in HitLens.
You can get a basic understanding about the Hitlens variables from Part III of the Help file (Part III. Analyze Your Performance: Rankings and Traffic > Step 9. Monitor traffic with HitLens > Setting up HitLens for dynamic websites > Sub-step 1: Get the tracking code and understand its variables).
HitLens has three types of the tracking scripts: embedded, external, and frameset. Embedded scripts are inserted in the pages before the closing
tag. External script refers to webceo.js, a file that is referenced in the embedded script; this file should be uploaded to the root directory of your domain. The frameset for the frame controller pages is inserted in the Head tag and used to define external referrers and exclude counting double hits.
If your sites don't include framesets, you'll need only embedded and external Java Scripts. Get the embedded JavaScript by copying it from the preview window in the HitLens Wizard.
Assign values to the following variables:
var id = $SITE_ID$ > var id = 1234. This lets the system know what site is being tracked. Your site ID is available in the Project Manager.
var pc = $PAGE_ID$ > var pc = 0 to let HitLens know that it should not look in the database server for a page's name. These two variables are the same for all pages of your site.
To let the system know that the value should be used for the page's name, enter var PAGENAME = escape('') > var PAGENAME = escape('My Homepage').
You can also populate the content group variable (var CONTENTGROUP), if you want to group some pages under the same category based on their content, or transaction (var TRANSACTION) for your thank-you pages if you want to track transactions. PAGENAME and other HitLens variables are page-specific.
Insert the changed tracking code into your HTML page between the opening and closing Body tags.
Upload the pages with the embedded JavaScript and the external webceo.js to your host.
Q: What is the HitLens password and how can I get it?
A: When you activate HitLens, you set at least one password which allows you to access the HitLens reports and settings.
Note: the HitLens passwords can be different from your Web CEO account password.
The master password is mandatory. The site owner sets it while activating HitLens. Master passwords are associated with the Web CEO registration details for the person who activated HitLens for the site. Master passwords give full access to HitLens modifications. If the site owner gives his/her Master password to another person, this person will be able to view traffic reports and change some of the HitLens settings for that site.
If you want somebody (for example, your client) to view the Hitlens reports, you can set a Guest password for him/her. The Guest passwords only allow Web CEO users to view traffic reports (no HitLens settings can be changed).
You can also set an eCommerce password. If you do this, the user who has entered the Guest password will be prompted to enter the eCommerce password when he/she attempts to access reports under eCommerce and Campaigns.
If you forgot your Master password, you can request it from the Web CEO Datacenter. Just click 'Forgot password' on the Master password request form and it will be sent to your e-mail address (since it is also your Web CEO user name).
Q: Why don`t you have spider tracking in HitLens?
A: It goes without saying that the spider tracking and reporting tool is very helpful for an SEO. However, Web CEO's technology does not allow us to easily add this feature. Our visitor tracking system is based on scripts; robots do not run scripts and so robots' visits are not tracked by our tracking system. To track spiders and report their activity, log analyzers are required. For now, we do not have plans to develop a log analyzer.
Q: Is there a solution for Macromedia Dreamweaver incompatibility?
A: We can offer you a workaround so that Dreamweaver will not remove the tracking codes from template-based pages after updating the template.
When creating a Dreamweaver template, you should insert a new Editable Region (Insert > Template Objects > Editable Region (Ctrl + Alt + V)) at the bottom of the template page. For instance, you can name this region 'Hitlens'. You will see the following lines in the code:
Move the "<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->" line in the code so that it is placed after the closing tag :
<!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="HitLens" -->
<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->
The HitLens Wizard is set to insert the tracking code before the closing tag. If you create the Editable Region in the way shown above, the HitLens tracking code will be inserted into the editable area.
To insert the HitLens code into the page, please go to Project Manager (File > Project Manager), select your website there and press 'HitLens settings'. This will open the HitLens wizard window. Select the 'Pages' tab and insert the tracking code into each page of your site. Then upload the updated pages to your Web server.
Note: if you put the mouse pointer on one of the following lines:
<!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="HitLens" -->
or
<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->
You will get the following warning on the Properties tab:
"Invalid markup <!--
Marked invalid because it's an overlapping or unclosed tag.
If the display look correct, it is safe to delete these tags."
Please don't pay attention to this message, as it doesn't affect the work of your website.
Q: My ad campaigns are not being tracked. Why?
A: The most common reasons for this are:
1. The syntax of the link that you gave to your advertiser is incorrect. Check to see that it fits this pattern:
The `source` parameter stands for the campaign name, and the `kwd` parameter stands for the keyword, which is helpful if you are tracking a ppc campaign.
Note that if your key phrase contains more than one word, we recommend separating the words with a + sign.
2. The landing page includes invalid tracking code in its source code.
3. The page hasn't been visited yet. Please have patience or make a test visit.
For more details on campaign tracking, see Help > Help Topics > Part III: Analyze Your Performance > Step 9. Monitor Traffic With HitLens > Sub-Step 1. Setting Up Live Visitor Tracking > Tracking Ad Campaigns.
Q: My site has a framed structure and seems to be tracked improperly. How can I fix it?
A: HitLens inserts a special piece of code in the head tag of the frameset pages. This code helps to correctly define external referrers to framed sites and makes HitLens count only one page view (otherwise it would count a hit on every frame as a different page view).
As a rule, when you activate HitLens for a framed site, HitLens will detect a page with frameset and present you with a special code (frameset.js) to insert into your page -- you should see the 'Recommended to enable' message against such a page file name.
If for any reason you prefer to insert this script by hand, you should do as follows:
1. Open frameset.js located in ...\Web CEO\BIN\ for editing. Replace $SITE_ID$ with your site ID which can be found in the Web CEO Project Manager.
2. Copy the code and paste it before the closing tag.
3. All content pages should contain the embedded code.
4. No tracking code should be placed into the side menu frame if your site has it.
Q: Why are HitLens data different from my log analysis reports?
A: The information in the log files (processed with log analyzers) will never match the numbers you see in stats based on JavaScript (visitor tracking systems).
Log file analyzers and real-time visitor tracking systems monitor website activity differently. Log analyzers report server-side activity, such as how many times a file has been requested from the server. Visitor tracking systems are based on tracking scripts and obtain information directly from visitors' browsers, reflecting how many times a file has been loaded onto browsers. These techniques provide two sets of data describing the same site's traffic.
Both systems have their own advantages and disadvantages. If your focus is on technical performance, like bandwidth consumption, server clustering, and peak loads, then log analyzers will give the most detailed data. However, most website owners and operators are interested in how well their sites satisfy visitors' needs, so visitor tracking systems are much better at providing this information.
Q: Why do I have undefined referrers in reports?
A: There are several reasons why the referrers of a visit can show up as `undefined`:
* a referrer isn't located on the Web, or is located on the local Web, or is blocked by a firewall or another similar program;
* the visitor's browser doesn't support cookies;
* a visit has started on a page of your site that lacks tracking script, or the page's script didn't work for some reason (for example, if the page is very large and takes some time to load, the visitor might not wait until it loads fully before proceeding to another page);
* your site consists of frames. Normally, HitLens detects a frame controller page (where the frameset is described) and offers to insert special code in it. If for some reason HitLens fails to detect the frame controller file, you should insert the code by hand into the Head tag. Download the script file from the Web CEO site at http://www.webceo.com/download/frameset.js.
Note: this script is only for frame controller pages, it cannot be used for other pages.
If you have any other HitLens-related questions that were unanswered in this section, please contact our customer support department at support@webceo.com.
Q: Why does HitLens report undefined pages?
A: If the page on your Web server is tracked by HitLens, but there is no page name that corresponds to it in the HitLens Tracking system, you will see an 'Undefined page' in the HitLens reports.
There are three common reasons why this happens.
1. You inserted the HitLens script into a few local pages using the HitLens wizard and uploaded them to your host. After this, you removed the HitLens code from these pages and pressed 'Apply' or saved changes on exit. Because of this, the Hitlens database server lost the information that helps it link page IDs with page file names (or custom page names). When this page containing the tracking code is visited, no page name is set in association with the visited page, and HitLens reports it as 'Undefined'.
Solution: compare the Web page IDs - they should be the same on your server and in your local copies.
2. You populated the tracking script into a page using the HitLens wizard and then manually copied and pasted the same script into all the other pages of your site, forgetting to save the changes in the wizard.
Solution: remove the incorrect script and insert it using either the HitLens wizard or by hand.
3. HitLens tracking code was inserted manually, and var pc was set to zero. However, no value to var PAGENAME is assigned, so the tracking system was unable to define such a page and reported it as 'Undefined'.
Solution: the page's name should be included in the code as a value of var PAGENAME.
Q: Can HitLens track sites built with Flash?
A: You can enable HitLens for a flash movie consisting of several sections. To track these sections, you should do the following:
1. Create as many blank html pages as you have sections in your flash movie, and give names to each blank page corresponding to the name of each section.
2. Insert the tracking script to every blank page using the HitLens Wizard.
3. Insert the following code to the html page where the main flash movie resides:
..where "news.html" is the first section of the movie.
4. Load the flash movie for editing. Assign the following Action Script to each movie section you want to be tracked:
getURL("yourpage.html", "HitLens_frame");
where "yourpage.html" is a blank html page that is assigned to the event you wish to track (movie load started, movie load finished, button click, divisions, subdivision entrance),
and "HitLens_frame" is a frame created on the page where the main movie is located (see point #3).
As a result, you will get movie sections tracked under their logical names.
Q: Can I set up HitLens to track ad campaigns ?
A: To track ads used in ppc campaigns (Overture, Google Adwords), enable the eCommerce reporting plan in HitLens settings and give your advertiser a link including the "?source=...&kwd=..." parameters, for example:
The `source` parameter stands for the campaign name, and the `kwd` parameter stands for the keyword.
If your key phrase contains more than one word, we recommend separating the words with a + sign.
As soon as you activate your ad campaign tracking and a visitor comes to your site by following the link, Banner101 (see the URL in the above example) will appear in your HitLens reports under Campaigns. Select this campaign, then press Budget to enter the cost.
There are several reports related to ad campaigns: Activity By Campaign, Cost Of Visit By Campaign, Cost Of Transaction By Campaign, and ROI. You can also view Details in the Activity By Campaign report to see the list of keywords related to a specific campaign and stats that have been generated by keywords used in the campaign.
For more details on campaign tracking, see Help > Help Topics > Part III. Analyze Your Performance > Step 9. Monitor Traffic With HitLens > Sub-Step 2. Viewing Reports > Sub-Step 10: Get An Overview Of Your Ad Campaigns: Clicks, Actions, Revenues.
See also Help > Help Topics > Part III: Analyze Your Performance > Step 9. Monitor Traffic With HitLens > Sub-Step 1. Setting Up Live Visitor Tracking > Tracking Ad Campaigns.
Q: How can I add the HitLens tracking code manually?
A: HitLens has three types of the tracking scripts: embedded, external, and frameset. Embedded scripts are inserted in the pages before the closing tag. External script refers to webceo.js, a file that is referenced in the embedded script; this file should be uploaded to the root directory of your domain. The frameset for the frame controller pages is inserted in the Head tag and used to define external referrers and exclude counting double hits.
If your sites don't include framesets, you'll need only embedded and external Java Scripts. Get the embedded JavaScript by copying it from the preview window in the HitLens Wizard.
Assign values to the following variables:
var id = $SITE_ID$ > var id = 1234. This lets the system know what site is being tracked. Your site ID is available in the Project Manager.
var pc = $PAGE_ID$ > var pc = 0 to let HitLens know that it should not look in the database server for a page's name. These two variables are the same for all pages of your site.
To let the system know that the value should be used for the page's name, enter var PAGENAME = escape('') > var PAGENAME = escape('My Homepage').
You can also populate the content group variable (var CONTENTGROUP), if you want to group some pages under the same category based on their content, or transaction (var TRANSACTION) for your thank-you pages if you want to track transactions. PAGENAME and other HitLens variables are page-specific.
Insert the changed tracking code into your HTML page between the opening and closing Body tags.
Upload the pages with the embedded JavaScript and the external webceo.js to your host.
Q: How can I get the statistics for the number of visits to a specific page?
A: You can get some limited stats for a specific page or a number of pages united into a group.
If you enabled tracking using the HitLens Wizard, you should do as follows:
1. Select your site in Project Manager and press 'HitLens settings'.
2. On the 'Names and Groups' tab, click the 'Group Manager' button located at the bottom left.
3. In the 'Content Group Manager' window, click 'New', type in the name of the content group and click 'Save'.
4. Go back to 'Names and Groups'. In the 'Content Group' column, select the name of the group of the page you would like to track individually. You can repeat this for any other page and assign groups to several pages.
5. Apply changes.
As a result, you'll enable generation and viewing of some reports, namely: 'New visitors by content groups', 'Visitors by content groups', 'Repeated visitors by content groups' (all in Visitors category), and 'Views by content groups' (in 'Pages' category).
Q: How can I set up HitLens to track different domains as the same website?
A: To merge visitor statistics from a different domain (www.yoursecondarysite.com) with the data of your main project (www.yourmainsite.com), add its URL to the list of URL masks.
Open File > Project Manager, and select www.yourmainsite.com there.
Click HitLens Settings, go to the Advanced section, and click URL Masks. Add the following URL masks with the `include` rule:
yoursecondarysite.com/*
*.yoursecondarysite.com/*
Press OK and then Apply to save changes to your HitLens settings.
Q: How can I track clicks on the "mailto" links?
A: There is a solution for tracking clicks on the 'mailto' links on your site pages.
1. Create a separate HTML page for each e-mail link that you would like to track, for example, 'my_email_at_emailcom.html'.
Insert the tracking code to these pages using the HitLens wizard. At the Names&Groups tab enter the e-mail address to be tracked as a 'Name in Reports' for all such pages. Create a new Content Group and assign it to all pages with tracked e-mail links.
2. Create a new blank HTML page, for example 'blank.html'.
3. On the HTML pages with mailto links, add the following line:
When a visitor clicks on this link, a window for the new message to your_email@email.com will be opened. At the same time, my_email_at_emailcom.html with the Hitlens tracking code in it will be loaded in the frame described above.
Q: How can I track orders?
A: To track the number of your orders, reservations, form submissions, etc. you should assign transactions to the 'thank-you' pages on the eCommerce tab of the HitLens Activation Wizard. Follow this way:
1. Make sure that you are using HitLens eCommerce reporting plan for your website.
2. Insert the tracking code into the page that shows up to your visitor after he/she completes the form (also known as the 'thank-you' page).
3. Assign a transaction and amount (if applicable) to this page on the eCommerce tab in the HitLens settings.
The number of people who have made a positive decision -- i.e. who have ordered your goods or services by filling out the order form -- will be shown in the eCommerce reports group in HitLens.
You may refer to our Help file (Help > Help topics > Part III: How do you analyze your achievements? > Step 9. Monitor traffic with HitLens > Sub-step 1. Setting up live visitor tracking and Sub-step 2. Viewing reports > Sub-step 6: Get a summary of your eCommerce: visits, conversions, revenues) for more details on the eCommerce tracking activation.
Q: How do I insert the tracking code into a PHP-driven (ASP, JSP etc.) web page?
A: HitLens can track dynamic as well as static sites. However, in order for HitLens to track dynamic sites, you must be familiar with the technology your site was created with - PHP, ASP or another dynamic environment. You should follow this procedure:
1. Copy the HitLens tracking script and learn what the variables are used for.
2. Create dynamic variables with necessary values and pass these values to the HitLens code.
3. Insert the modified code into your pages and upload them to your Web server.
For more details, read our example for the PHP-driven pages that is given in Part III of the Help topics (Help > Help Topics > Part III: How To Analyze Your Performance > Step 9. Monitor traffic with HitLens > Sub-step 1. Setting up live visitor tracking > Setting up HitLens for dynamic sites).
If you doubt your ability to complete this task, or simply have no time to look into it, our specialists can help you for an additional fee. Depending on the difficulty, the cost of this job may vary from $100 to $300.
