Yahoo! Web Analytics is deployed by adding a small piece of JavaScript tracking code to each web page you wish to track. Yahoo! Web Analytics generates a unique JavaScript tracking code for each project.
When a page is loaded, the browser processes the JavaScript tracking code. That code directs the browser to retrieve a small, invisible pixel from the Yahoo! Web Analytics web server and to process the JavaScript include file. By doing this, detailed information about your visitors’ activity is sent to the Yahoo! Web Analytics database, and Yahoo! Web Analytics sets (or resets) a first-party cookie in the visitors’ browsers.
The first time a visitor comes to your web site, Yahoo! Web Analytics sets a one-year, first-party, persistent cookie in their browser. During the first visit, Yahoo! Web Analytics identifies them as a first time visitor. Next time that person visits your site, and every subsequent time, Yahoo! Web Analytics resets the cookie life to one year beyond the date of the visit, and identifies them as a returning visitor for the duration of that visit.
If Yahoo! Web Analytics is unable to set a cookie, then it will identify the visitor as a first time visitor. If the visitor has deleted the cookie, then Yahoo! Web Analytics will identify them as a first time visitor and re-issue a new first-party cookie.
Yahoo! Web Analytics can set cookies in all browsers except those set to reject cookies at the highest security level. Research indicates that this is less than 0.1% of all browsers. In case Yahoo! Web Analytics cannot set a cookie, the system can still retrieve information from the JavaScript tracking code, the IP address and the browser itself.
You can define and track online marketing campaigns with Yahoo! Web Analytics by means of a unique landing page or referring URLs. Yahoo! Web Analytics will then identify which campaign prompted the visit.
During a visit, Yahoo! Web Analytics recognizes each time the browser loads a page from the web site and records a page view.
Want to do more? Yahoo! Web Analytics allows you to define conversion actions, i.e., actions taken by the visitor - such as visiting a specific page, submitting a form, downloading a file, subscribing to a newsletter, etc. You can define conversion actions by editing the Yahoo! Web Analytics tracking code on key pages or adding JavaScript to your HTML links.
Yahoo! Web Analytics maintains detailed records of every visit to your web site in its database. When you request a report, Yahoo! Web Analytics mines this database to produce real time reports.