Web Stats

wizard91 · 3 Apr 2007 at 17:34

Hi I am interested to find out what a good way to collect web stats is for a website. Im trying the Google stats right now, but im having a bit of trouble with it, my host provides them but they are very very basic, being able to see the number of my visitors, what they click on and things like that in detail would be nice.

What are your suggestions? Thanks.

WotDa · 3 Apr 2007 at 17:43

I'm using the default ones from my host.

Not sure how you'd go about installing it on your own host mind you, but have a link anyway.. http://www.analog.cx/

If you want I'll get you some screenies.

psyr33n · 3 Apr 2007 at 17:51

Does your host support PHP etc.?

wizard91 · 3 Apr 2007 at 17:51

WotDa said:
I'm using the default ones from my host.

Not sure how you'd go about installing it on your own host mind you, but have a link anyway.. http://www.analog.cx/

If you want I'll get you some screenies.

Thanks, and yes please.

WotDa · 3 Apr 2007 at 18:26

wizard91 said:
Thanks, and yes please.

Pulled a few pages out and took screens;

General summary

Daily report

Referring site

Status code report

Request report

Sorry for the nasty jpg compression, clicky to enlarge etc.

Still not sure about installing it on other hosts mind.

Edit: Interesting to see how many hits my sig got in the few hours it was up and the last stat update, aswell as the 80 ish mb of bandwitdh!

wizard91 · 3 Apr 2007 at 18:39

Nice, thanks a lot for the screenies, im gonna install this now, im wondering if it displays unique visitors or not though, i'll post if I can get it up though

WotDa · 3 Apr 2007 at 18:45

wizard91 said:
Nice, thanks a lot for the screenies, im gonna install this now, im wondering if it displays unique visitors or not though, i'll post if I can get it up though

It shows IP's and the like, I just didn't get a shot of that because I couldn't be bothered to change the format of them, let alone blank out IP's.

It shows the number of requests they make and the percentage of that, but it only seems to list 50 before cutting others off the list.

Edit: You might also need http://www.reportmagic.org/ , they have a sample at http://www.reportmagic.org/sample/index.html

wizard91 · 3 Apr 2007 at 19:12

WotDa said:
It shows IP's and the like, I just didn't get a shot of that because I couldn't be bothered to change the format of them, let alone blank out IP's.

It shows the number of requests they make and the percentage of that, but it only seems to list 50 before cutting others off the list.

Edit: You might also need http://www.reportmagic.org/ , they have a sample at http://www.reportmagic.org/sample/index.html

im having no luck, I need to be able to run the .exe on my providers computer with remote access or something, which I cant do. Gona give Google stats another go then lol.

WotDa · 3 Apr 2007 at 19:13

wizard91 said:
im having no luck, I need to be able to run the .exe on my providers computer with remote access or something, which I cant do. Gona give Google stats another go then lol.

Yea, I came to that conclusion too. Let me know how you get on with Google stats, was thinking of giving it a blast myself.

manjuice · 3 Apr 2007 at 20:02

I use this: http://extremetracking.com
Uses javascript.
If you use the free option, anyone can see the stats.
WinRAR uses it.
http://extremetracking.com/open?login=rarlab

Beansprout · 3 Apr 2007 at 20:25

Google Analytics is great

Analog is a bit yucky - Awstats is much prettier, not sure offhand of the functionality differences but I'm guessing they're broadly similar

To use Awstats (or any logfile analysis program) you'll need to be able to access or download your site's raw log file, which shouldn't be too hard, but might be a bit of a pain.

Google Analytics however is just a bit of Javascript you add into your site - it's fantastic, though more geared towards ecommerce use.

nick · 3 Apr 2007 at 21:12

Mint

$30 but worth it I think

Moredhel · 3 Apr 2007 at 23:05

I've always used AWStats myself, however I saw a demo of that Mint app the other day and that looks nice, although it's not free.

Augmented · 3 Apr 2007 at 23:15

nick said:
Mint
$30 but worth it I think

Agreed, Mint is excellent. However, it should be mentioned that Mint is designed for immediate analysis of current stats rather than analysis of stats over time since the data is continually rolling over.

So, if you need to be able to compare stats on a monthly weekly/basis then Mint isn't ideal, but great for something momentary like a blog where you want to quickly know what the current trend is e.g. sudden increase in referrals, inbound links, popular posts etc.

Other than that, yeah, AWStats and/or Webalizer does the job. Webalizer because it's fast and provides a good summary, and AWStats because it's well featured and very detailed (but consequently slower to use).