MISSOURIAN WEB SITE TOPPED 1.2 MILLION HITS LAST MONTH

The Web site affiliated with the Southeast Missourian newspaper, semissourian.com, logged 1,207,256 hits in November, almost doubling the number of hits in October. It sounds big. And it is. But I caution you that when talking about Web sites, the number of hits is usually the wrong metric to gauge user interest. More informative is the number of page views a site generates.

What's the difference between the two?

A hit is any element that demands activity from a Web site's computers. These elements are usually graphics or the computer coding that enable a Web site to work. For example, if you pulled up a page on semissourian.com, you might find several photos there. In most cases, each one of these photos would generate a separate hit.

Photos are not the only elements that generate hits, however. Any graphic element generates one: a logo, for example, or even an advertisement. In addition, some elements on a Web page that you might not think of as graphics, in fact, are. A navigation bar (which looks like simple text) could represent several hits if each word is a graphic.

Thus, on a single Web page there might be dozens of hits. That's why page views are a better gauge of Web site use. A page view indicates how many individual Web pages users look at, whether that page logs two hits or 10.

Hits can be deceptive

In fact, talking about hits in most cases is not only meaningless, it can be deceptive. In the early days of the World Wide Web, some Web programmers placed tiny graphical elements on a page so that each time one of their pages was accessed, these tiny elements would reload. As a result, the number of hits on a site could appear high even if few people were actually visiting and using the site.

At semissourian.com, we seek to streamline the number of hits on our site. Why do we do this? In brief: graphic elements, by demanding action from a Web site's host computers, can slow down a site. We prefer to use computer code, rather than graphics, to build elements on our pages. This makes our site faster. It also allows the photographs and advertising on our site to pop off the page.

Why doesn't everyone do what semissourian.com does to make their sites fast?

There are several different answers to this question.

One, it can be easier in the short run to create a site depending on graphic elements rather than complex computer code. This is particularly true when you take into consideration that sites created in code appear differently on different computers and different browsers (a browser is the progam your computer uses to display the Internet to you).

For example, an Apple Macintosh will interpret a Web site's code differently than a PC. And one version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (one of the most popular browsers) will display a site differently from another Internet Explorer version, not to mention the various versions of Netscape or WebTV or America Online. In fact, when we make major design changes at semissourian.com, we make sure to test each one on various computers using different browsers. Otherwise, some parts of our site might not work correctly for some people.

Not all Web designers have the resources to test their sites fully. And they might not have the understanding of code to be able to solve all the potential problems. That's why they rely on slower graphics when code would be better. (As a side note, there are many reasons to build sites that depend on code rather than graphic elements, but I'll save this discussion for a future column.)

Eye candy' vs. content

Another reason that many Web designers build with so many graphic elements is that they don't have much content to put on their site. Thus, they turn their sites into "eye candy" with lots of moving parts and special effects. While such dazzling elements might look good to the designer, they are rarely the kinds of items that actually draw users back. In fact, research indicates the best way to turn people away from a Web site is to bog it down with slow-loading special effects. Meanwhile, the best way to generate repeat traffic is to keep the content fresh, fast and useful.

At semissourian.com, we understand implicitly the direct correlation between content and traffic. Since we redesigned our site in October and began putting more fresh content online, our traffic has exploded.

The advantages of graphics

Using graphics to build a Web site does have some advantages beyond the "eye candy" effect, however. As already mentioned, graphic elements help create a consistency in presentation between users' computers. And, they can make a site pulsate with energy. The challenge is to find the right balance between graphics and code.

This brings me back to the issue of hits. One of the major reasons we track the number of hits on our site is to help us plan technology investments. What times of the day burden our computer servers the most? When are we likely to crash? Do we need to buy more computers to handle the increasing traffic?

Are we proud that we surpassed 1.2 million hits in November? Absolutely. Is it that important to you? Probably not. I'll tell you about our page view explosion in a future column, however. Now, that information is hot, hot, hot!

New at semissourian.com

Regularly in this section of the column, I'll try to focus on a few of the new items to be found at semissourian.com. This month we've added customized weather information for Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, Paducah, St. Louis and other towns in our region. Click on the weather icon on the home page of the site, and it will take you there.

In addition, you can check our area's full TV listings, along with movie schedules and reviews, in the Arts & Entertainment area.

For poll results from last week's question ("Are you in favor of higher taxes to support the Cape Girardeau school district?") vote in this week's poll and scroll down the page.

If you have any questions about the Internet or semissourian.com, please send me an e-mail at jrust@semissourian.com. Or write: Jon K. Rust, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702.

Jon K. Rust is director of the semissourian.com MediaLab and vice president of Rust Communications.