Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6.24
Search Engine Filter
Using the Right Traffic Attribution Filters
As you've probably noticed by now, Yahoo! Web Analytics provides three distinct traf-
fic attribution filters:
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irect
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i
ntelligent
o
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riginal
these are not unique filters by themselves, but a way of attributing credit to a
given completion. the following example is provided by my good friend tami Dalley:
Imagine a game of football… The quarterback throws the ball to the
receiver in a perfect pass. The receiver runs like the wind all the way to
the 5-yard line before running into the defense. Before he is tackled he
gives the ball to another player who dodges the defense and takes it into
the end zone to score a touchdown. The crowd goes wild!
The quarterback's mother thinks, “My son is a star! Without his excel-
lent pass, there would be no touchdown at all!” The receiver's mother is
there also and says to her friends, “Without that brilliant 80-yard run
from my son, there would have been no touchdown.” Then the girlfriend
of the scorer says, “Wait a minute, it was my boyfriend who scored the
touchdown—the full credit belongs to him!”
So who does deserve the credit?
And this is what traffic attribution is all about, and for a lot of people, it
goes way beyond the simple attribution models provided in Yahoo! Web Analytics.
