Lost in logs

STaN

Are there any utilities, sites or programs available that can analise site log files?

dahamsta

Tons of 'em.

adam

phaxx

I use webalizer myself, was dead easy to setup and I like the results.

Pablo

webalizer wounldn't be my fav. it does DNS lookup for the whole log file every time !

i use awstats http://awstats.sourceforge.net/ is much less of a strain on the server.

dahamsta

webalizer wounldn't be my fav. it does DNS lookup for the whole log file every time !

It doesn't have to. Or it can cache lookups. RTFM before you diss.

adam

STaN

So... which would be the best/easiest to use. Considering i'd be an *cough* newbie to this sort of thing?

dahamsta

That depends on you and your environment. What OS are you running? Do you want to analyse and/or view the logs on the server-side or on your local computer, or even on a third-party's site? Local analysis means downloading the logfiles, so what kind of connection do you have?

In a *nix environment, I would recommend Webalizer for the server-side. Analog is also a very capable analyser, although the reports it produces aren't very intuitive. That said, alternative frontends are available. Both are free software. Wusage, by Boutell, is another fine solution, with excellent reports, but it's commercial. although not particularly expensive. If you have money to spend, it's definitely worth a look.

Also commercial, and quite expensive, are the many WebTrends server-side solutions. WebTrends are a very competent company, and although I've only ever used their client-side analysis applications, I think their server-side ones should be pretty good. The reports that the client-side application produced even 3-4 years ago remain better than anything I've seen produced today.

I'm unsure of other OS's or architectures, but I think there's a Webalizer port for Windows. WebTrends is defintely available for Windows, as that is where they started. On the client side, on Windows, WebTrends would probably win again, although again they're expensive.

An alternative is to use a remotely-hosted solution. You use these service by placing code or an image on the webpages you want analysed, which will be supplied by the service provider. They log accesses to pages containing that code, and analyse them. You access the reports on their site.

If you're a complete newbie, and you're not out to particularly impress anyone, go for the last option to get you started. You can work your way up from there. You should find links to everything mentioned here from the previous link I posted.

adam

STaN

My PC is a windows PC and the server is an NT one (wasn't sure which one you were referring to).

Basically what i wanted to do was to see where people are going and where they aren't. Basically to analise my navigation and things like that in order to improve efficiency, hits and content etc.

Im on a really slow connection, about 3kb/s and ive heard log files get quite big.

So would WebTrends be the right one for that?

dahamsta

My PC is a windows PC and the server is an NT one (wasn't sure which one you were referring to).

Either/or. Like I said, it can be done both ways.

Im on a really slow connection, about 3kb/s and ive heard log files get quite big.

Very. The word you were looking for is "very".

So would WebTrends be the right one for that?

On the server-side, yes, if you can afford it. Not on the client-side, because your connection wouldn't be up to it (unless your site has a very low hit rate). However, this has just slipped out of my territory, because I don't run Windows servers. Perhaps someone more familiar with Windows servers would like to lay out options?

adam

nahdoic

Originally posted by Dave|STaN
So would WebTrends be the right one for that?

or if you want a nice, free, easy solution www.statcounter.com

phaxx

Originally posted by Pablo
webalizer wounldn't be my fav. it does DNS lookup for the whole log file every time !

RTFM.