TECH: Website statistics reveal fascinating visitor info

Your guides were rummaging through website visitor statistics provided by our web hosting providers and sitemeter.com and discovered some amazingly detailed reports on web traffic to our websites. This isn't meant to scare the bajeezus out of you, but it does give us some great info on what people are looking for when they happen upon our various websites.

The coolest new data we discovered was the referring URL. Your browser will gladly tell a website (if asked) where they came from as they begin browsing a new site. Plus, if the previous website was a search engine, the search engine forwards along a package of info containing the search words that referred to the website.

In the last day or so, I now know that people clicked on our websites while looking for:

• Chicago residential price appreciation, 2007, by neighborhood
• Selzer library (a Chicago Public Library in Lincoln Square)
• ravenswood condo appreciation
• Scott Waguespack (my alderman in the 42nd ward)
• Chicago lakefront cafe
• windy city great fire pictures

This is the most amazing info! Look for us to post shortly on topics you request - without you even knowing you've requested these posts.