What keeps the best stats?

[tinplane]

Greetings to all,
Can someone tell me what is the most accurate way to keep website statistics? I don't want a million different parameters just basic stats.
Is the webilizer provided by my web hosting company accurate? It doesn't always agree with other sources.
Thank you in advance for your time,
Dan

[ADAM Web Design]

I've never been a big fan of Webalizer myself. But as far as being accurate goes, it's probably as accurate as your other sources simply because it draws from your raw log files, whereas external counters such as Hitbox (I can't think of any others off the top of my head) don't.

As far as the free ones go, I personally like the look and feel of AW Stats the best, and IIRC it also draws from the raw logs.

So my suggestion to you would be to find two programs that draw from raw logs and compare. You should (in theory, because reality indicates something totally different) find they're equal.

[ADAM Web Design]

As far as accuracy is concerned, I would think your best stats would come from Webalizer, or any other server software that draws the stats from your raw logs.

Offsite counters/stat packs such as Hitbox don't allow for this, and many of the cookies/installation files are destroyed and/or blocked by various anti-spyware programs.

So if it were up to me, I'd say "if Webalizer looks pretty enough to you, leave it alone because it's probably right."

[Faglork]

But dont forget to have a look at the webalizer.conf ... the default parameters might not be appropriate. Just go through them. Especially the part where you specify your page type (.html, .shtml etc. etc.)

AFAIK the default search engine query strings have to be updated.

As long as you do not need hard facts and your interest is to spot trends, webalizer is ok.

Alex

[kservik]

I think Awstats are much easier to read and it is free.

[Phil Tanny]

Treat yourself to the best (imho).

I got weary of stats programs like those mentioned, and others like them, and went with Urchin.

Urchin is quite expensive if you buy it yourself, something like $900. I don't like Urchin that much I must admit.

However, I searched for hosts that offer free Urchin stats, and that worked great.

There is a list of Urchin powered hosts on the Urchin site: Urchin.com They were very responsive to my questions too, even though it was clear I wasn't going to be a buyer.

I went with micfo.com and have been happy so far, about 6 months. Free Urchin stats for all my domains.

I'm not qualified to say if Urchin stats are really the most powerful etc, but they seem quite user friendly to me, so I actually use my stats now.

Anyway, that's another alternative.

[DrTandem1]

Your main concern, it would appear from your question, is how many people are visiting your site. Most hosts provide an accurate measuring of this. They simply count unique IP addresses that visit your site.

I often hear people boast that their site has received X million hits. This means very little. A "hit" is a file being accessed. Depending on your site and its configuration, one visit could equate to hundreds of hits.

So, for your purposes, look at unique visits. It is possible that with DHCP, you could get different visitors using the same IP; however, if you have that much traffic that this occurs, then you should have no concerns about how much traffic you are receiving.

[pln123]

You might find StatCounter suitable for your purposes. It's free (to a point) and gives quite comprehensive, realtime stats.

You'll have to insert the code supplied into all the pages you want to track.

Perry

[Jason Tor]

I agree with finding a hosting company that offers a good stats package for free.

I use ww w.fxstudios.net - they have around 6-7 free stat services through c-panel and the actual hosting customer service is outstanding.

Hope this helps.

Jason Tor

[malmazan]

My host provides webalizer and awsats. I use both. One thing about awstats is that it separates search spider traffic from actual human traffic.

I wish there was something more powerful though. For instance, i would like to be able to see a monthly tred curve for a specific page. Right now i manually read the resuls evere month and add them to a spreadsheet, but it is a huge pain.

One good thing about Urchin that i know is that you can see traffic per folder. That's great for finding out how an area of the site is doing. To achieve that with Webalizer/AWStats i had to create subdomains which are a pain (they show up on a separate stats page, they need their own robots.txt, 404 error files etc)

Originally Posted by tinplane

Greetings to all,
Can someone tell me what is the most accurate way to keep website statistics? I don't want a million different parameters just basic stats.
Is the webilizer provided by my web hosting company accurate? It doesn't always agree with other sources.
Thank you in advance for your time,
Dan

[Maloney]

I found this a few weeks ago and so far I love it:

http://www.tracewatch.com/

I'm one of those people that can't make sense out of webalizer and awstats is ok. But this one is very nice. Path analysis, the whole shebang.

And btw - it's free! lol

[davebarnes]

tinplane,

Your question: Can someone tell me what is the most accurate way to keep website statistics?

Answer: raw log data

Then, you use software to reduce the log data to pretty charts and tables.

Ah, software.
All the "log analyzer" programs will produce different results because each makes different ASSUMPTIONS.

Pick one. Set the filters to what you want. Stick with it. Don't change the filters. Now, you can compare month to month.

,dave

P.S. I have used WebTrends ($3500/5M page views) for the last 5 years and really like it. Of course, I only paid $1300 for umlimited use.

P.P.S. Pick one and stick with it.

P.P.P.S. I just realized that I did not answer your question: "What keeps [I think you mean "presents"] the best stats?" The answer is, whatever pleases your customer the most.

[chiron]

I agree with the log files and other presented solutions, have used Urchin and a ton of freebies and paid services, and I think all of the above is good advice. Urchin was especially good, I thought.

That said, if you want to go with a non-visible (your choice), affordable hit counter that requires minimal input from you, I'll toss into the ring a company like 123count.com or web-stat.com, both of which seem to be the same underlying software. For reasons of client requests I happen to use both, sigh.

These aren't my personal geek favorites, but clients like them, print-outs look nice, the reports are near-geek-level yet very visual for any sort of presentation, etc - and they are quite accurate, and in the case of web-stat, for $9.90/month or whatever I was/am paying, the one time I needed billing-related client support was surprisingly quick and professional.

But like my web-brother here in Denver noted, raw log data rules.
Hiya to davebarnes, btw. Nothing beats a nice warm, sunny, snow day, am I right?

[tomzo]

I use gowebtools.com which provides only 32,000 free hits but I think it's very cheap to purchase more. I've found it to be very clear and simple, though I have noticed it miss the odd visitor.

Rental property London UK

[Adamwlad]

I also have webalizer for my web site but I also use StatCounter.com which gives pretty good stats, and it's free. You'll just have to paste some code in there and you're all set.

-Adam

[adbart]

Originally Posted by Maloney

I found this a few weeks ago and so far I love it:

http://www.tracewatch.com/

I'm one of those people that can't make sense out of webalizer and awstats is ok. But this one is very nice. Path analysis, the whole shebang.

And btw - it's free! lol

I love this! Thanks so much for mentioning it...