Can you identify web visitors??

Identifying Website Visitors: The Naked Truth (Part 1)

The Net-Results website gets a lot of traffic from people who would like to identify individual website visitors.  Search phrases such as “identify website visitors” and “track individual web site visitors” bring traffic to us on a daily basis.  We find that many people are searching for a solution that will tell them the email addresses (or names & phone numbers) of each person that visits their website.
This post is the first in a series that will explain exactly what is and is not possible when it comes to identifying and tracking visitors to your website. Having personally built popular software for identifying website visitors I have at least one truckload of experience in this area, maybe more depending on the size of your truck.

What’s Not Possible
A universal truth:  No legitimate software or service in existence can identify the names, phone numbers or email addresses of each visitor to your website.  I know, I know.  That sucks.  Very disappointing.  But that’s absolutely the way it is.  Let me show you why this is the case.
Think about your computer.  Where in it would you find your email address?  How about your name and phone number?  The first place that comes to mind is your email program like Outlook or Entourage.  Another place where your name may be found is in the operating system itself.  You may also have look in the various documents you’ve created.  Here’s the deal: The code used to build web pages is not technologically capable of accessing information stored in these places.  Web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox & Safari are specifically designed to not allow access to the information stored in other programs.  You can’t build a web page that sorts through Outlook contacts, Word documents or operating system settings without the user’s permission.  It’s not only a question of ethics, it’s also just not possible without tricking the user into downloading something sneaky.
“But what about cookies?” I hear someone asking.  No, cookies cannot provide this kind of information either.  Many people have the mistaken impression that they can but they cannot.  Web developers use cookies to store pieces of information they already know.  Cookies cannot discover new information, they can only store known information.
That is the bottom line.  End of story.  But wait…
There is one kind of program that’s capable of digging around in your address book or elsewhere to find email addresses and other contact information.  It’s called spyware (I’m sure you noticed that I said no legitimate software can identify each visitor to your website).  Spyware can probe various areas of a computer and “phone home” with all the dirt it digs up.  You won’t find anyone openly selling this kind of software because it is only used by criminals and spammers (if there’s really a difference there).  But alas, even spyware has its limitations.  In order to use spyware to get at sensitive information you first have to trick someone into installing it on their computer.  Your mileage may vary, but I’m not predicting success in identifying all of your website visitors in this manner.

Ok can you id website visitors? Yes the easiest way we know is to put in a reason to sign up into your website such as an email list, a coupon, get basic information, have someone call you....that will get you names that are genuinely interested. Some reporting software can tell yu a lot about yur visitors but in my estimation cool info but not enough.  OK More to come soon.

Joe Rossini