Analyze This

November 3, 2005 5:54 AM

I want to know who is coming to my website, what their doing, where they are coming from, and how I might optimize my website and marketing dollar.
Can anyone recommend a reasonable software / service to perform web analytics on my website. WebSideStory looks awesome, but also looks like it might be out of my league, maybe not. What type of features should I be looking for, and what do I need to consider? Any positive experiences with your website?
posted by jasondigitized to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

A HREF='www.statcounter.com'>Statcounter is really good, free or cheap, and very detailed.
posted by pollystark at 6:08 AM on November 3, 2005

AWStats
posted by sandking at 6:11 AM on November 3, 2005

Second to AWStats. Free, good stats, intuitively presented.
posted by selfnoise at 6:13 AM on November 3, 2005

I also have good experience with AWStats for being a robust free stats engine. Might not do everything you're looking for, but it covers the basis extremely well.
posted by Remy at 6:14 AM on November 3, 2005

Well, I don't know if it is constructive to add this but I also go with AWStats have been very happy.
posted by herting at 6:33 AM on November 3, 2005

I've recently heard about the Mint log analyzer from CSS nerd Shaun Inman. Does anyone have any experience with this tool?
posted by killdevil at 7:18 AM on November 3, 2005

Who is your webhost? You may already have log analyzers and not know it...
posted by vanoakenfold at 7:47 AM on November 3, 2005

My company uses HBXAnalytics by WebSideStory and I think it is awesome, however, I don't know the cost.
posted by mic stand at 8:20 AM on November 3, 2005

"What their doing" = "What they're doing"

Spelling Nazi etc. etc.
posted by alby at 8:38 AM on November 3, 2005

Webtrends is pretty much as good as it gets. I use it every week and am amazed at some of the information it can provide, when compared to the free services.
posted by blag at 8:44 AM on November 3, 2005

I would second AWstats with the caveat that it's extremely difficult to set up with some hosting providers (1and1 off the top of my head).

I've also used Webtrends at work and it's got a lot of data, but the interface is clunky (to me). If you're a FireFox user you may experience some problems with it.
posted by Captaintripps at 10:02 AM on November 3, 2005

Just understand that what you're asking is fundamentally impossible (except for what they're doing -- you could build your website to make tracking that possible).
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:06 AM on November 3, 2005

Interesting read Zed. Helps explain why the two log analyzers I've used show a difference of about 200% on unique visitors. If I ever deign to have advertising on my site, I'll use the analyzer reporting 200% more.
posted by Captaintripps at 10:27 AM on November 3, 2005

Webtrends is a bloated monstrosity that is so tweakable (and poorly tweaked by default) that I'm amazed anyone trusts it anymore.

NetTracker is just about as bad, though seems to have greatly improved over the past year.

Urchin is one that I've tried and looked good, but I couldn't get the client to go for it (they were hung up on the obviously incorrect...in their favour...statistics NetTracker gave them).

All of those are expensive products. If you're looking for something free and useful at basic levels, AWStats or Webalizer are your best bets.

Background: 40% of my job in the past 6 years has been to be intimately familiar with web log statistics.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:36 AM on November 3, 2005

I second StatCounter, they offer pretty much everything you asked for. You can get info on the reffering page (if its a search engine you can find out the search terms they used), how long they stay on each page (this feature is a little buggy but sometimes works), geographical data, and browser and system stats. The best part is its free.
posted by deafweatherman at 11:23 AM on November 3, 2005

AWStats.

Personally, since I have a low traffic website I look at the raw access logs after filtering out all images/css/robots, so that every line in the log represents a human page visit.
There are some details that can't be seen in statistics. e.g. if a visitors spends only 10 seconds before downloading the software, that visitor is likely to be a repeat visitor.
By looking at the raw access log files you can also correlate people who the people come through search engines, and see whether they found what they've been looking for or not.
posted by Sharcho at 11:28 AM on November 3, 2005

I like WebStats - Chargeable, but does for me :)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 12:54 PM on November 3, 2005

another vote for StatCounter. Very user friendly, lots of charts, graphs, and detailed visitor info - and best of all, FREE!
posted by roundrock at 6:40 PM on November 3, 2005