• JavaScript disabled

Adding JavaScript tracking codes to track page performance is the most popular way of web analytics today. As below graph illustrated, tracking codes is like the tiny red block embedded in page’s HTML source file. When page downloads, these JavaScript codes will be executed in the meantime, just like the Zerg’s parasite in StarCraft, or monitoring camera in bank, and the data recorded. If a browser disabled JavaScript, tracking process can’t be triggered and the user’s behavior data won’t be transfered to web analytics tracking tools. It’s pathetic, right? So, JavaScript function to be opt-on is vital for web analytics.

JavaScript tracking codes is the "spy" in a page to track page performance

We hope it would never happen, but approximately 5% of browsers disabled JavaScript, then web analytics tools like Google Analytics would be blind to them. Fortunately 5% is not a big score, and I found trends that JavaScript-disable were dropping year by year around world as below chart shown. (Data is from w3schools.com)

The encouraging trends are due to 2 reasons. On one hand, more and more web page interactive functions are developped by JavaScript. People need JavaScript to make web page living and easy to use. On the other hand, brower is no longer a "awkward" tool for "academic geek" but for all the people these days. For common users, most of us don’t know and don’t have the motive to disable JavaScript. Really good news. Dennis R. Mortensen’s research gave the same trends as below.

Now that we know the situation of global, then the question is what about China? I’ve crawled in Internet for some time, but no authorized data found. Fortunately I found a fancy tool can answer some of my questions. The tool is JYC Statistics, which has a lot of functions that Google Analytics can’t provide. For example, it includs what I need the JavaScript disable statistics and cookie disable statistics as left chart shown. Google Analytics can’t track the JavaScript status of client end browser, and this tool make it up for us. Bad news is the tool is not free, only provide a 7-day-trial. I made an experiment in my Chinese blog: http://www.chinawebanalytics.cn. One of my assumption is my blog readers have better browser using skill than common Chinese users, then the JavaScript disable ratio should be a little bit higher than average situation. After several days, I received a not supprising result as below.

Only 3.58% of my readers’ browsers disabled JavaScript

Only 3.58% of my readers’ browsers disabled JavaScript, which I thought it would be about 5%. The data delighted me, less percentage, more accurate Google Analytics data. But, one issue is the sample size is small, since the experiment periord was coincidentally the same period of Chinese Luna New Year, and we got much fewer people. Therefore the data may not represent the overall situation of China. But, I believe China JavaScript Disable ratio won’t be larger than 5%. It seems not a big influence on web analytics tracking in China.

• Cookie disabled

Most web analytics tools identify different visitor through cookie, for example, Google Analytics utilizes 1st party cookie to identify unique visitor and visit. Although some web analytics tools are able to utilize IP address to identify different visitor when client end browser  JavaScript disabled, IP address is only a sub optimal solution for accurate identification. To be honest, I never think IP address can help on counting different visitors for Chinese since most of us access Internet through kinds of proxies. The largest Internet Access Providers of China  (China Telecom and China Unicom) both provide (and only provide) dynamic IP address for their users. For Google Analytics, 1st party cookie is a necessity, without it GA can’t work. While some other analytics tools depend on 3rd party cookies. No matter what type of cookies, some of them are probably blocked by browsers in default. Comparing with 1st party cookie, 3rd party cookie is more likely to be blocked by browser’s default privacy settings. For instance, IE8 has a very strict opt-on restriction for 3rd party cookie, but relatively loose for 1st party cookie. That’s why we think 1st party cookie is the best practice for most web analytics tools.

IE8 default privacy setting is medium

Firefox 3.5 is accepting 3rd party cookie in default

In terms of the percentage of cookie blocking, it’s not easy to find a generally accepted statistical data. IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) released in 2006 that approximately 12% 3rd party cookies were blocked, and DoubleClick thought not more than 7% 3rd party cookies were blocked in 2009 (DoubleClick data needs to be further veryfied). Even though, 7% still not a small number. 1st party cookie has a better life than 3rd party one, very few occassions to be blocked. Of all my blog readers, less than 1% disabled 1st party cookie. I believe not more than 5% users in China will disable 1st party cookie. 1st party is still a safe solution for web analytics tools. Below chart illustrates the 1st party cookie blocking of my Chinese blog (www.chinawebanalytics.cn).

Only 0.37% of 1st party cookies were blocked

The result is far beyond my expectation, and I thought there would be 5% users disabled 1st party cookies. I believe Chinese situation is much better than global. This is probably due to less share of Chinese users know how to disable 1st party cookie, or Chinese people care less about their own privacy. But one issue in China is significant, China has a lot of people have to be online in internet-cafe, cookie will be all diabled for these computers, which will lift the blocking share up a little bit, but I don’t think the overall blocking share of 1st party cookie in China will exceed 5%. If an analytics tool utilizes 1st party cookies, really needn’t worry much in China.

• Cookie deletion

Cookie deletion is another issue we concern for web analytics tracking. In China, People delete cookies not because they want to protect their privacy, but empty their browser "rubbish". Cookies are always deleted together with user deleting their browser tempt files. Cookie deletion will inflate visitor countings. Figure about frequency and ratio of cookie deletion is controversial. Research from JupiterResearch said 40% users would delete their cookies at least once in a month in 2005. ComScore thought the data should decrease to 31% in 2007. Those figures scared me. That meant that our tracking tool might inflate unique visitors more than 30%. What about the situation in China? I don’t know, I hardly found the figures. Anyone can help me? Thanks. I guess wouldn’t be much different from global. The PC hardware upgrade in China will reduce the chance of cookie deletion, since better hardware will provide more disc space, and people will be less likely empty their browsers. I believe in China the cookie deletion share will decease year by year just like JavaScript disabled trends.

• Conclusion

The block of JavaScript and cookie in China has very limited influence on web analytics tracking, but cookie deletion will influence some. What we have to concern more is the frequency and ratio of cookie deletion, and I will follow this area in future research. Happy Tiger Year!