Visitor and Traffic Log

We have implemented a new feature called Visitor and Traffic Log. This feature applies to ClientAccess and Proofing Galleries and it records important visitor's information. For ClientAccess, click on the "Visitor Log" link right next to the job name. For Proofing Gallery, it's the last column called "Visitor Log".

The following data are recorded. Please use the general guideline explained below to interpret and understand the raw data:

Time Visited: This is the time when your client visited the page (either a gallery or a page in ClientAccess). It's localized to your time zone defined in Account Profile.

Refer URL: This is the page URL where the client comes from that links to the page. For example, if the client clicks on a link you emailed to her from a GMail account, this Refer URL will contain gmail.com or mail.google.com. If the client clicks on the link from a software application like Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook Express, there will not be any Refer URL. Basically, this Refer URL must be another web page that contains the link to your gallery or ClientAccess page.

Page URL: This is the actual page URL your client visited. For proofing galleries, you will see the single default.aspx as the page, but for ClientAccess, you might see Contract.aspx, WeddingDay.aspx, etc.

IP Address: This is the IP address of the client's computer. It contains four sets of number if the format of aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd. Internet Service Providers cycle IP addresses once in a while but in a short period of time, you can pretty much assume the same IP address indicates the same client on the same computer.

Session Id: This is a key that generated by our web server that indicates user sessions. If different entries have the same Session Id, you are almost guaranteed that the multiple entries are the same person from the same computer. Web server does re-use these session keys, but to have a duplicate session key in a short period of time is unlikely.

Cookie: This is a key that our program writes on clients computer. It doesn't contain any information, but just a randomly generated string. However, this string is your most reliable information to identify a person -- if the Cookie values are the same across multiple entries, you are guaranteed at 100% that it is the same person, using the same computer, and even the same browser (because different browser will generate different key values). However, be aware that different browser settings may not allow persistent cookie values, some users completely block cookies. So basically, same cookie values guarantee you the same person, but different cookie values don't necessarily mean different people.

User Agent: This information tells you about the operating system and browser the client is using. It's a bit technical and you can ignore this. But it does provide information such as whether the client is on a PC or Mac, is he/she using IE, Safari, or Firefox?

How to use all these information? One of the purpose of looking the activity is to identify your client. When have they looked at your contract, the gallery etc. In many cases, it's fairly easy to achieve this. For example, when you initially email the client the URL to ClientAccess, you know the first person who clicks on the URL is your client, the bride or the groom, or whoever you emailed the link to. As soon as you see an activity in the visitor's log, you can use the cookie value to identify the client. Click on the cookie value will filter the log by that value and it also insert it into the textbox at top. Manually type the client's name that you would like to identify, and "map" these two to the same person. Next time, when this person uses the same computer, his/her name will automatically show up in the visitor's log. And this works for both gallery and ClientAccess!

As mentioned above, Cookie is the single most reliable data to identify the same person. However, even if the cookie values are different, if the IP address is the same, and also the User Agent is the same, you can pretty much assume it is the same person. The reason is that even everybody is using IE, the User Agent is drastically different from one and another.

Use your own judgement and let us know what you think!