Visitor Reports – Network Properties – Network Location

After the Browser Capabilities reports are the Network Properties reports. These reports include Network Locations, Hostnames, and Connection Speeds. At first glance you may be wondering what value knowing something like your visitor’s network location would be to you. Although it may not be something you use regularly, reading between the lines of these reports can reveal some useful information depending on the nature of your site and your business.

Let’s start with the Network Location report. The network location is defined by the registrant information for an IP address. Since many IP addresses are registered through ISPs you are generally going to see a list of ISPs in this report. But some IP addresses are registered to corporations. This is where some useful nuggets of information can be found. You can see if competitors or potential customers are viewing your site. If a customer is coming to your site and not contacting you maybe it is an opportunity to reach out to them. This is especially useful for B2B sites. Of course if one of your potential customers or competitors is an ISP, this may not be of much use to you.

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