Godfrey , Grand , and Poler mentioned estimating the advertising potential or promotional effectiveness of a site, basing ad rates, and justifying costs of partiuclar technologies, e.g., Java. They also agreed that information on site traffic was a needed input for improving site design. For example, the number of visitors by time periods and areas of the site, relative usage of various areas, the domains and demographics of the users, the referring URL and navigational behavior in general, usage trends over time, and comparisons of the site traffic with industry benchmarks. A count of users and visits is only possible if the site is using registration and some form of authentication. Poler adds, however, that the units depend on the type of activity being measured.
Pages are an obvious measure of popularity of pages.
Grand observes that since a browser in a household setting might be shared by several people, data that differentiates the user, like a login name, will be crucial when it is available. All loggers agree that no unique identifiers should be collected without the users' permission and that users should derive some benefit for providing information about themselves. Beyond that, there are some differences of opinion and practice. Within these summaries there is no way to identify any individual, or even an individual machine. We are unsure of ethical and legal limitations, especially in Europe, and so have erred on the side of caution.