Monitoring website traffic

nonnatus

I run a busy little website selling specialised retail products. My customers can order from me by paying on website, or by phone.

It's been a quiet start to the year but trade is picking up nicely now the weather has turned.

But I have been contacted by someone I had brief dealings with last year. The deal ended badly and I don't trust or like this person at all. They have emailed me direct to say they have been "monitoring the traffic on my site and noticed a dip in the last few months" and they go on to offer me various backing options etc.

I'm not in the least interested in the proposal but I was a bit surprised that i have been "snooped" on to such a level. Is it possible that they can monitor my website without access to back office stuff or might they just be bluffing? (wouldn't be surprised...)

I'm not very "techie" so any opinions/advice gratefully received.

Jox

You can...


http://snurre.hubpages.com/hub/-How-to-Find-Out-How-Much-Traffic-a-Website-Is-Getting

InsideInsurance

You cannot get exact statistics without access to your analytics provider or your webhost.

As per the link above you can get estimates of traffic but these are typically only vaguly accurate for large sites and more of a guess the smaller your site is. For example my small USA based site gets about 300 visitors a day but none of the sites on the link get anywhere near this as their estimates

paddyrg

They're guessing a little - if they think they have accurate stats they're wrong.

You can get your own much more accurate stats using google analytics

shmeeko69

They are only estimates, especially when it comes to Alexa. Working on averages is how they seem to operate and they are not very accurate when comparing the information to my own Google analytics for my sites.