Why Anonymous Visitor Detection
If someone visits your website and does nothing but read a page or two and leave, can you figure out who they are? Historically, the answer has been no because web browsers like Chrome are designed to be secure and not give away personal information, unless the visitor explicitly fills out a form and provides that information. In other words, unless someone buys something from your website, or fills out a form that requests personal information, you have no way of knowing their name, email address or other personally identifying details. Since only a fraction of your site visitors will ever fill out a contact form, many website owners are missing out on the vast majority of website leads that come to their site.
The information that can be collected by your website without a visitor’s consent is limited and includes the IP address their computer is currently assigned, the page they visited, the date and time, the type of browser they used, and the type of computer they are on. From this basic information, Google Analytics can discern an amazing amount of data such as what country your visitors are coming from primarily, or what is the most popular page on your website. However, none of this tells you who the person is or gives you any way to contact them in the future.
(more…)