[thelist] Stats

[Robert Lee]

Fred,

Not viewed traffic is bots, worms, etc (anything without a user viewing the
page). I like the fact that Awstats removes this from the main numbers,
since this doesn't reflect real visitors to the site.

My issue with analytics is that you add extra overhead (both from a
programming standpoint, and from a page load / bandwidth standpoint) to
achieve something that is already being done for you (as long as Apache or
IIS logging is available). Of the three that are on most hosting packages
(Analog, Awstats, and Webalizer) I personally like AW stats the best. There
is a lot more that can be done with it if you get into the config file. 

As for the raw logs, yes you would have to use an app to analyze them for
you. They can be useful if you are looking for something that the stats app
doesn't tell you, like the IP of some bot that ignores directives, or
referral spammers, etc..., so that they can be blocked!

HTH,
Rob


 
-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Fred Jones
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2009 8:37 AM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: [thelist] Stats

I wrote to my hosting support and said:

For site X, Webalizer shows:

Total Visits: 2,698
Total Pages: 10,395

for September. But Awstats shows:

Visits: 629
Pages: 6,353

for September.

They said "The main difference is that Webalizer displays charts by
calculating hits for all HTTP response codes. Awstats excludes results
for the traffic "not viewed" by the visitors, and this causes the
difference."

Does this make sense? What does it mean traffic which is "not viewed?"

Another site shows Visits/Pages 984/1877 in Webalizer and 319/651 in
Awstats. At least the difference (of a factor of 2-4) seems
consistent. :)

Perhaps I should be using Google Analytics? They also said I could
download and analyze the Apache logs myself, but I suppose I would
still have to rely on a package like Webalizer or Awstats.

Any information appreciated.

Thanks,
Fred
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