A couple of days ago, I posted about Piwik which is a Google Analytics alternative. These two gather information the same way: via javascript. While this is gives great insight into your visitors, it is not 100% reliable because of script blockers. Basically, if a visitor is running a script blocking utility (i.e. NoScript), unless the user has specifically set the script domain as trusted, it will not run which means no stats.
All this just means you shouldn’t forget about log file analysis for web traffic. While you usually cannot get the same amount of detail as the javascript variety, when you have logging on your web server every visit is recorded, regardless. For a great log analysis tool, check out AWStats. I have used this for many years on my servers and it is fantastic.
Granted only a small percentage of people use script blockers, but if you run a tech blog (like this site) a higher percentage of your visitors may be using one which can affect your traffic stats. When you use log file analysis, you know every visit is captured.
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Paul Higgins
03. Jul, 2009
What you seem to be saying is ignore your visitors wishes and if they happen to have scripts blocked, track them through logs. Hmmm.
LuisR
03. Jul, 2009
Nothing wrong with knowing what your visitors are seeing in your own web site. Unless users have to use http login for access to your site the only information you can gather from them is their IP address and browser type. Also helps locate broken links.
Juscelino M. Acevedo
03. Jul, 2009
I use the free version of WebStat and I love it. It provides me all of the relevant information that I need regarding my visitors and allows me to concentrate on what’s important.
LuisR
03. Jul, 2009
Programs like AWStats have the advantage of using the access logs the server generates anyway without adding extra load to the server or the client. No need to add anything to your pages and also captures things like robots from search engines and such. Also lets you track traffic to non-HTTP content such as images and media files. Helps you know what search engines are crawling through your site. Many web hosts that use cPanel as their hosting platform offer AWStats as a standard feature.
Anthon
03. Jul, 2009
Funny you should write this. I’m trying to track down a bug in Apache where it sporadically doesn’t log requests.
Mark
11. Aug, 2009
With support for many different log file types, including Internet Information Server (IIS) and Apache, and support for the Windows and Linux operating systems, SmarterStats is a complete Web site statistics solution for both small and enterprise-level businesses.
Whether you run 30,000 sites or a single site, the functionality of this complete Web log analytics solution is accessible anywhere an Internet connection is available. SmarterStats’ industry-leading Web interface is optimized with Silverlight charts and graphs, AJAX controls, snapping panes, keyboard shortcuts, and other intuitive controls that bring the features and performance of a desktop application to the Web.
Plus, the unique methodology in which SmarterStats interprets log files and converts them into an efficient, proprietary, relational database reduces disk space utilization up to 85% while creating an ideal platform for reporting and extensive data mining.