Why Web Site Measurement Hacks?

The term hacking has a bad reputation in the press. The press uses it to refer to those who break into systems or wreaks havoc with computers as their weapon. Among people who write code, though, the term hack refers to a "quick-and-dirty" solution to a problem, or a clever way to get something done. And the term hacker is taken very much as a compliment, referring to someone as being creative, having the technical chops to get things done. The Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the good ways people are hacking, and pass the hacker ethic of creative participation on to the uninitiated. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology.

There are plenty of sources for purely technical information about web datahow to parse logfiles, optimize server performance, and write cool JavaScript. Unfortunately, it is usually the "why," not the "how," that leaves businesses hanging. Web data collection is a simple practice, as is parsing the data into relatively meaningful buckets. The hard part is the analysisfiguring out what data is important and what it means relative to the business problem at hand. Web site measurement is something software can do, enabled by a variety of data collection algorithms and parsing strategies. Web analytics is something that requires peoplebright people willing to roll up their sleeves, hunker down, and answer the hard questions.

The hacks in this book are designed to help you know what to do to gain insight into how people use your web sitebits and bytes of information that will help you better explore, understand, and unearth information about how people interact with their sites. Sure, there are scripts and technical tricks, but the essence of hacking in this context is analysis. This compendium of interesting ideas, built upon a foundation of relevant and important information about how the Web is measured, is designed to turn you into a sophisticated web data analyst (or at least push you in the right direction).

The result is 100 hacks, over half of which have been written by some of the best and brightest minds in web measurement today, all of which will hopefully push the limits of your understanding of web measurement, give you ideas about how better to answer the intangible "why," and, most of all, encourage you to "hack" into your web measurement data.