Web Traffic Analysis Software
by Herman Drost
In Part 2 of this series, we discussed three of the ways to
track your Web site visitors. Now we will take a look at:
Web Traffic Analysis Software
These are programs that analyze your server logs and then
create traffic reports accordingly. The quality of the reports generated will
depend on what software you actually use. Some log analyzers are free and come
preinstalled on many hosting accounts, while others can cost a good deal of
money.
Examples:
Webalizer - www.webalizer.com
WebTrends - www.webtrends
Webalizer (free)
The Webalizer is a fast, FREE, web
server log file analysis program, which produces usage statistics in HTML
format for viewing with a standard web browser. The results are presented in
both columnar and graphical format, which facilitates interpretation. Yearly,
monthly, daily and hourly usage statistics are presented, along with the
ability to display usage by site, URL, referrer, user agent (browser), search
string, entry/exit page, username and country.
Here's an example of the Web Usage Statistics:
http://www.webalizer.com/sample/index.html
WebTrends (purchase)
The Web Trends Analyzer produces essential reports on Web
site visitor patterns, referring sites, visitor paths and demographics. You can
learn, for example, which sites and keyword searches have referred the largest
number of visitors to your site.
It presents data, detailed and in-depth, in an organized and
concise tabular format with full-color graphs.
This Log Analyzer is licensed for a single web server
hosting content with a maximum of 50 domains.
Here's a sample of the web usage statistics:
http://download.netiq.com/Library/SampleReports/WAS_LA_Complete/complete.HTM
Conclusion
Web traffic statistics provide very valuable information
about your web site. You can make better marketing decisions through them
telling you:
which Web pages are most popular
and which are least used;
who is visiting your Web site;
which Web browsers to optimize your
Web pages for;
which Web search engines are most
useful to you, and which are the least useful;
and where errors or bad links may
be occurring in your Web pages.
By analyzing your web traffic, you can determine what
marketing strategies are successful. You can then change them as necessary, to
boost the sales or services from your site.
Herman Drost is a Certified Web
Site Designer and owner of a Site Design and Low Cost Hosting company.