Tracking stats on PDFs

[off...@mesora.org]

Although I see a PDF file on my web server receiving a 600% growth in
hits, user sessions have not increased at all.
How do I account for this discrepancy?

I know this increase is due to my facebook promotion, where a link to
that PDF file is posted on facebook to dozens of groups. Since posting
this file, teh PDF went from 5000 weekly his to 30,000. But Urchin (as
far as I see) is not reflecting this increase in "sessions". It only
shows an increase in the amount of hits of the PDF.

How can I determine the number of unique people accessing that PDF?

Is this info already within Urchin and I simply have not accessed it,
or is a setting required that can associate users and this increase in
PDF hits?

[Caleb Whitmore - Analytics Pros]

PDF download tracking doesn't influence sessions.  The report in Urchin for Downloads records "hits" to a file.  Unless you've configured Urchin to treat PDF file extensions as a "pageview" page type, then hits to PDF's from users who don't generate any hits to a "page" won't increment Session numbers.  Thus, for people linking directly to your PDF from Facebook, it is expected that you won't see an increase in session/visit numbers unless those people also follow a link to view an actual page on your site, not just hit a discrete file that's matched as a download file type.

I notice you posted to Urchin 5.  Are you still using Urchin 5?

Best,

-Caleb

www.analyticspros.com

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