Spying on Website Visitor Habits After GDPR

Spying on Website Visitor Habits After GDPR

12 July 2018

Since the GDPR, it has been hard to offer webmasters an insight into how their website visitors are using their websites. Most third party analytical services like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel, are not truly compliant with the GDPR. The GDPR requires the express consent of the visitor if you are either storing tracking cookies on their computer or sharing their visiting habits with yet another company which can track users across a broad range of other websites.

Most commonly, on premise website statistics tools used by web hosting providers are also not compliant with the GDPR. These tools often record and present information such as “IP Address”, which is now deemed personal information by the GDPR. This information needs the consent of the visitor to be used in the long term.

Website World now offers web masters live visitor traffic data that is compliant with the GDPR, while providing fantastic insight into visitors’ habits.

Webmasters Can See the Names of Their Visitors and Where They Came From

If the customer is known to the merchant, such as via a login, making a purchase, making an enquiry, or following a link from a newsletter, then the webmaster can see the visitor traffic associated with the customer’s name. Privacy disclaimers should be made on any form where a web master receives a customer’s personal information.

If the name of the visitor is unknown, the webmaster can still see what country or region the visitor is from.

Webmasters can track from which website a visitor arrived from. This allows the webmaster to monitor the success of advertising, and see which backlinks are working the best.

Webmasters can track what keywords customers have searched for on their websites. This helps webmasters identify new products they might need to source or identify navigational issues to help customers find the categories or information they seek more easily.

How is Website World Visitor Tracking GDPR Compliant?

Website world uses only a temporary session ID provided by the browser. This session ID is reset every time a user closes their browser or restarts their computer and cannot be tracked against other websites. The visitor’s IP address is tracked only for one week, just long enough so that this information might be provided to an approved government agency in the case of fraud. After a week, the visitor’s confidential traffic data is deleted. Under the GDPR, personal information may only be kept if it serves a legitimate purpose.

As the Website World live visitor tracking does not use any third party services, it is also extremely fast. Other tracking services often add 100ms or more to the time it takes to display a website completely.

The live visitor traffic data collected from visitors and provided to webmasters using the Website World CMS includes:

• date and time of visitor arrival

• URL of the landing page they arrived at

• URL of the referring website page

• additional pages also viewed

• web browser or mobile device used

• length of time present on the site

• country of origin

• search keywords

Benefits to Webmasters in Using Live Visitor Traffic Data

Website traffic data provides multiple benefits to webmasters in the management of their site. These include:

• analysis of advertising campaign success

• visitor targeting by country

• identification of top referral sites and improved backlinking abilities

• personal time management

• bounce rate reduction

• monitor social media performance

• identification of drop off pages

• analysis of length of visitor stay on site

• improving navigation

• identifying new products to sell

Website World plans to expand their internal live visitor analytics, to help webmasters measure and adjust their SEO tags in a single integrated user interface, allowing sales funnel measurement. Please view our article on Using Your Website’s Live Visitor Traffic Information to Your Advantage for more details on both the data provided and the use of this data.

Website World

https://www.website.world

14/386 Richmond Road,

Auckland 1021

New Zealand

Ph: 0800 89 41 22

Email: support@website.world

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