Overlay Report

An overlay report displays each link's statistics on top of the page itself, beside the link, instead of listing them in a separate table.

The point is to remove the distance between data and context: instead of rows of URLs, each element's share of clicks appears exactly where the eye expects it and the layout becomes part of reading the report. Its known limitation is that aggregation is keyed on the destination URL, so two links to the same target at the top and bottom of a page share one number and neither can be credited; newer tools solve this by keying on the element instead. Personalised pages and responsive layouts also have no single fixed rendering, so an overlay is always read against one version of the page and mobile has to be inspected separately. Compared with a click map, an overlay gives an exact figure per link while the map gives a density pattern.