23 replies to this topic

[Dwain Dibley]

Hi

I was wondering how you can tell if someone has added your site to his/her Favorites list (and which page) by looking at the log files.

Many thanks

BBB

[OldWelshGuy]

Good Question BBB, I will be interested in this... One way (he says thinking on his feet) would be to create a favicon and upload it, then when someone adds you to their favs, it will call on your fav icon file. This will not tell you who what when why or where though

[Randy]

Yeah, the old favicon trick is an easy way to tell how many people bookmark your site. Make sure to offer them a link to easily bookmark your site and number of bookmarkers will go up exponentially. There are little javascript scripts out there to make this easier by doing a bit of browser sniffing.

You could also tie that bookmarking link to another script to record data about who is clicking on it I suppose. Or you could set / pull cookie information to get more details.

I've never tried to track those folks when they come back. I doubt you could do it strictly from scripting however as I don't believe (off the top of my head) that anything special is added to the log files when someone visits your site via a bookmark. It would look like a direct request I think, though I'd have to look to be sure. And their IP number alone wouldn't be enough to track returning visitors

You could of course check for this type of detailed info from a cookie if you set one. I believe that Urchin does something like this, as do many other stats programs. I'm not sure how useful this information would be if you get too detailed though. I use it do a comparison of how many new unique visitors you get as opposed to how many returning visitors. But I don't get into any more detail than that.

[Vertster]

First of all, you need to create a Favorites icon file. There are numerous web sites that explain how to do this. Its named favicon.ico When a user adds your site to their favorites or bookmarks, the browser requests that file.

Then when you analyze your logs, look for requests for that file. Each of these are people that have presumably added your site to their favorites.

[OldWelshGuy]

build an image, make it 16 x 16 pixels and you need to save it as a windows Icon file with the extension .ico a free tool here will allow you to do this www.irfanview.com

[Dwain Dibley]

cheers guys, I was going to actual ask if using a favicon would help in my first post ....doh (but did'nt want apear like I thought I knew what I was talking about).

I am currently using a favicon so I will start to look for that in my logs.

Many thanks

BBB

[Dwain Dibley]

I'm now trying to be smart here, am I correct in thinking from what has been discussed that the only problem with the favicon is its only applicable to IE5, 5.5 and 6 (or is it just 5.5 and 6?)

So that would mean what is recorded in logs would be people just using IE, so no way of knowing about other browser users adding you to favorites (bookmarks) list...doh

Any other thoughts?

Thanks

BBB

[Scottie]

I think that's true, BBB. But check your logs to see how many of your users are using IE 5 and above. (I think it worked in versions before 5 as well.) On the sites I review, that number is usually 90% or more.

It's still a pretty good approximation.

I like to use the "number of users bookmarking the site" in my sales literature for the sites that sell ads. If someone likes it enough to bookmark it, it demonstrates the site's value and "stickiness".

[GeordieSEO]

favicons are nice

I've never seen anything about how much they increase repeat visits to a site but a favicon does help a site stand out in your favourites lists, hence making them easier to identify and possibly make people use the link more often.

If you don't have a favicon then you could check the error log for favicon entries

[cline]

Favicon.ico doesn't work very well. After awhile IE forgets about calling up the favicons.

I've found bookmarking to be a huge issue in some cases. I have one client selling a single, impulse-type item who gets 25% of sales coming in via bookmarks -- often bookmarking pages in the middle of the buying process. You bet we added a "bookmark this page" function in there once we saw this.

[Dwain Dibley]

2003-12-25 00:07:14 IP Removed /favicon.ico - 15 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.1;+en-US;+rv:1.5)+Gecko/20031007+Firebird/0.7 -

Got this from my logs (removed my IP), what do you think this is telling us?

Someone with Mozilla browser adding address to favorites?

BBB

[Vertster]

2003-12-25 00:07:14 IP Removed /favicon.ico - 15 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.1;+en-US;+rv:1.5)+Gecko/20031007+Firebird/0.7 -

At the top of your log file you should see a line that indentifies what each thing is, but in this case it looks fairly easy to deduce:

Date
Time
IP (blocked)
File Requested (favicon.ico)
Browser Type- (Mozilla Emulation?)
OS and Version (NT 5.1)
Language (US English)
Browser (Firebird)
Browser Version (0.7)

FWIW Firebird is a hot new Mozilla based browser, and you should check it out if you haven't yet. Lots of cool extensions, and its way faster than IE.

[projectphp]

To get favicon to work with other than IE, you need this metatag on pages:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://MYURL/{NAMEOF...MEOFICON}.ico">

That makes sure of maximum compatability across all browsers.

[Dwain Dibley]

2003-12-25 00:07:14 IP Removed /favicon.ico - 15 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.1;+en-US;+rv:1.5)+Gecko/20031007+Firebird/0.7 -

Firebird browser also uses favicon by the looks of it.

Any other browsers do we know?

ADDITIONAL: Has Highrankings.com been playing with there favicon? As it appears different, or is it just my eyes?

Edited by badboybart, 13 January 2004 - 12:19 PM.

[Scottie]

Hmnn.... I didn't change it. I don't think Jill did either.