This article was heard on the radio program "The Computer Report,"
which is broadcast live on WCAP in Lowell, Mass., and is syndicated on
WBNW in Boston and WPLM in Plymouth, Mass.
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I recently downloaded Log Analyzer 6.0 from WebTrends http://www.webtrends.com/ This software runs on your PC (and you'll need well over 100 megs of RAM, over 200 MHz processor speed, and lots of free disk space for good performance). You point the program to the log files at your hosting site. It can automatically fetch those files (by ftp) regularly on a schedule that you set, and generate an html-style report, covering the factors that you have selected as important, and providing eye-catching graphs to help you spot trends.
For me, the Technical stats are most useful -- providing not just a list of errors (all the instances of visitors not getting the page they requested), but also, often, the referring page as well. In other words, if the error is at my own site, I know what page to fix. And if someone made a typo in a link to one of my pages, I can see where the error lies, and send email to the webmaster, requesting that he or she fix it. In some cases, I see repeated errors from multiple search-engine links -- people looking for a real page of mine, but with a misspelling in the URL. In those cases, I simply make a new copy of the page in question and give it a new URL -- matching the misspelled one.
I also like the search engine referrer information.I see a list of which search engines bring me how much traffic, in a variety of useful breakdowns. About half of my traffic comes straight from search engines and directories. And about half of that comes by way of Google (including Yahoo's implementation of Google). AltaVista counts for about 12%. I also see exactly what people were looking for when they came to my site by way of search engines -- the full set of words that they entered in their query. Most people typed in three or four words or even more -- all kinds of combinations that I would have never anticipated. And I see what people from different search engines were looking for -- giving me a sense of how well represented I am in the various indexes. I also see lists of "key words" -- single words included in search queries, and that clearly confirms my long-standing belief that "key words" are truly useless.
In addition, I see what browsers people are using to get to my site (Microsoft's IE is outrunning Netscape and Netscape compatibles by a margin of 2 to 1); and what versions people are using today (over 85% of the IE folks are using version 5; and over 95% of the Netscape folks are using version 4, with less than 2% using a higher version of Netscape).
More important, I see exactly which search engine crawlers have been
visiting my site, and hence which indexes have current information about
my pages. And I also see how many hits and sessions these crawlers account
for, so I can take that into account when judging how my overall traffic
changes over time.
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For a thorough discussion of this topic, buy Richard's book Web Business
Bootcamp (published by Wiley) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres
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