Hit reports - Webalizer

[Ranjana]

Hi,

I needed some information on Webalizer hit reports.

I am doing promotions for a site which used to average
1.75 lakhs hits/month for about a year (Web trends)

It had steadied to 2 lakhs/ month from April - June.
I had started submitting the site form June.
The site was hosted on a third party server.

They shifted their site from there to another server. This ISP does not have the Web trends software. They have a software by the name of 'Webalizer'.

The reports that we recd for the last two months have been alarming. For July the hits were - 90,000 and for August it is 29,000. Whether promotions or not I don't see a reason for the hits being so low.


Well, can anyone help me out here. Somehow I can't understand such low hits. The promotions should have hiked up the hits at least last month instead of the hits hitting a lowest low.

Would really appreciate help, advice or any logical reasoning behind this.

Thanks a ton !

Regards
Ranjana

[Advisor]

Instead of looking at "hits" which means different things to different servers and software, can you compare "unique visitors"? This is the thing you want to know about.

Jill

[sanity]

Hi Ranjana welcome to the forums. :hi:

Jill's right that hits are not a great measure. I tend to use page views and unique visitors when providing reports to clients.

As to why your new reporting software has such vastly different results - I have come across this too. I assumned it was the way it interpreted the logs. It's an intreesting question and I'd love to hear others experiences on this.

In the meantime can you get them to offer you Web Trends?

By the way. What are "lakhs"?

[Kal]

Even if they don't want to purchase WebTrends for their servers, maybe you can convince them to use Web Trends Live (http://www.webtrendslive.com) which is Internet based tracking? It users the same metric labels that you're used to but is much cheaper than the software version. I think you can even get it for free if you are happy to place an ad on your site.

I've just transferred all my site tracking over to WTL enterprise because, like you, I was unhappy with my current stats package - too limited for the measurement of ROI and specific campaign tracking.

[Ranjana]

Hi,

Thank you all for your prompt reply.

This report that we have received is something like the undermentioned -

I could not analyse it properly 'cause it was not too clear. It does not give the unique visitor stats etc -
-------------------------------------------------------

Total Hits 91671
Total Files 62497
Total Pages 3562
Total Visits 3562
Total KBytes 309128

Total Unique Sites 1018
Total Unique URLs 1068
Total Unique Referrers 294
Total Unique User Agents 210


BTW, 'Lakhs' is actually 'lacs' - I misspelt it.

Regards
Ranjana

[scottiecl]

Maybe "lacs" means "logs"? I don't know...

What I have found is the hosting packages that offer Webalyzer usually offer a secondary program called Analog that will report unique visitors. I know I check both reports in order to get a clear picture of traffic and yes, they don't always agree.

My clients and personal sites are fairly small so we don't agonize over the stats too much.

[Daminc]

Hello out there,

I've just been given a task to assess some web site analytical programs.

Programs such as:

WebTrends
Web Trend Live
Sawmill
Urchin
and Funnelweb

No problem I thought, but then I was given a document with 'Analog 5.25: How the web works' as a title, which made me think just how much we could take these results as justifiable and act upon them.

The article I was refering to can be found at:

http://www.analog.cx/docs/whole.html#meaning

Now, I've got the information these software sites write about themselves but I would much prefer to compare this data with some honest reviews about the analytical software you use or if you've heard someone else using or even if you know where I might find some reviews that isn't someone blowing their own horn.

Any info would be helpful. Thanks

[Advisor]

I have a client site who has Urchin installed on his server. I had never seen it before, but I've got to say it is very, very good! Easy to use and has all the info you'd want. I was very impressed. I wish I could get it for my own server, but I think it would cost too much. It's something that is cost effective when the server owner installs it for all their domains.

Jill

[Daminc]

Thanks Jill,

When I've finished my report I aim to put individual opinions (non-affiliated) onto a word document. As a standard practice I also put the source of that opinion in the report. It's an 'eyes only' report so it won't be used for anything apart from giving my boss information that is as accurate as I can make it so he can make an informed opinion on whether or not to purchase some software. If you don't want the forum or yourself mentioned then it's no problem I just thought it would be polite to ask:)

[Advisor]

You're certainly welcome to use my name and my site. You'd have to ask Doug about the forum. But I doubt he'd mind!

Jill

[glengara]

Lakh - old Hindi measure = 100,000 or 'a great number'
Merrion-Webster

[chinook]

We recently installed urchin 4 (about 1 month ago) for our clients. We scoured (reviewed) all the analytics programs out there and Urchin was the clear winner in the price/performance category. Ever since offering it to my clients I get nothing but rave reviews. There are several key features that really help with optimising your site:
paths - lets you analyze the paths people took through your site.
clickthrough - lets you analyze which page of your site they came from and then which page they went to.
search engines - lets you see referrals by which engine & shows keywords by engine.

There are other features but the above are the really good ones.

[Daminc]

Hi Chinook,

The same goes for you. If you would rather I not use your name or site when I make my report I'll respect that:D

In front of me is all the information I could collect on NetTracker (Enterprise package)

NetTracker Enterprise package (http://www.sane.com/products/NetTracker/ent.html)

And it seems a tad expensive (especially when you compare it with the Urchin software). I mean, If you were to monitor a dozen sites the product would cost $2,995 and Support Agreements(???) an extra $1,195. So, does anyone have an idea why they are so expensive? Is it really as good as they say or is it just a marketing ploy (the more expensive it is the better it must be).

Any views or experiences would be welcome, Cheers.

[Advisor]

We recently installed urchin 4 (about 1 month ago) for our clients. Man, I would love to have urchin on my host! Was it expensive for you to purchase? I'm not at all thrilled with the stats I get, but it seems that urchin is only worth it if you're a hosting company and not just one site.

I'd love to talk my host into installing it. But it may not be cost effective for him since he keeps prices so low.

Jill

[kneelsit]

Hi Daminc,

My host server used to use webaliser (+analog) but now has changed to AW stats (after finding a bug in Webaliser)AW I believe is a free tracking program (Open Source) and in my opinion gives better stats than Webaliser.

I particularly like the section which tells you which bots went across your site, the date and the no. of hits made by each bot.

One interesting statistic I have found is the Ratio of the hits coming from Bookmarks(or direct url) compared to the hits from Search Engines direct. My figures for last month showed an amazing ratio of 6 - 1. To me this would seem to indicate that a very large number of visitors to my site have thought it good enough to bookmark and have then come back at a later date to browse at their leisure.

[kneelsit]

Follow-up:-

Forgot to mention tha it gives almost all the same info as webaliser but more detail. e.g. Most common keyword phrases used.
source of hits. etc.

[scottiecl]

My hosting provider just added AW stats in addition to Webalyzer and Analog and I do like the program much better.

Now, of they'd only stay up long enough for me to get some stats!
:(

[robwatts]

hi ranjana


webaliser faq (http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/webalizer_help.html)

I dont know if you seen this or not, should answer most of your questions.

hope it helps

rob

[kneelsit]

Hey scottiecl what happened to that very attractive feature photo of yourself? or am I confusing you with another member?

A really great feature of AW stats that I like is the record it gives of just which bots hit on your site with the date and the no. of hits.

I saw that googlebot came across mine on both 30Sep and again on 4thOct.

[Saravanan]

Hi Ranjana,

This is saravanan, i have just joined. I saw ur question and u said that you find difficult to identify the 'unique visitors' in web trends.
While you run the report, you can see details as "General Statistics" table (either u get the report in excel or word) you will find the details of your web site i.e., HITS, PAGE VIEWS, VISITS, VISITORS, in that you can see the information u required.

Regards

Saravanan

[scottiecl]

Welcome Saravanan!

I LOVE that feature- very neat as I have read posts where people have gone to great lengths to track Googlebot. Now I can just log in and see the last time Googlebot came to visit.

Well, thanks Greg! I hope it was me you are thinking of! This is my Halloween avatar. The clown smiley seemed appropriate.

I have to get used to seeing me looking back at me from my computer... it is a bit weird. I'm not much of a picture person...

Scottie

[kneelsit]

Hey I thought Halloween was November 1st. You are getting in quite a bit early aren't you Scottie or do you tend to treat it like Christmas and have a big lead up ?

Yes, I feel the same way about pictures of myself - but yours was quite attractive and seemed to reflect a pleasant warmth.

It took me quite a while to agree to having a picture of myself
on my site and I finally only agreed if I could show off my 2 lovely grandaughters at the same time. :)

Hey Doug, just had a thought, what about seeing if there is some software available which will allow us to click on an image and pixellate it - like they do on TV with the photos of the crims.?

I could then pixellate Jill's hand - it always looks rather scary to me. :D

[WebSavvy]

All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) is on Oct. 31st. :D

[scottiecl]

How sweet:love: - thanks for the kind words. Your grandaughters are beautiful-:angel:. I was glancing at your site last night and saw them (and you!). I need office furniture for my new office and thought I would check out your chairs.

A bit too steep for a little startup operation like mine but I will work up to them! I'm probably going to pick up $40 chairs from the local office warehouse for now. No investment capital backing me up :lol:.

I do like the look of them though! A friend of mine had a kneeling chair but it didn't have a back on it like yours- that looks much more comfortable.

I guess we do the big lead up to Halloween around here- the neighbors are already putting out pumpkins and scarecrows and my boys want to wear their Mike and Sully costumes every day. (Monsters Inc characters). So my avatar needed a mask!

Actually, here's a thought, we did a big to-do for Halloween at the office a few years ago and one of the design guys "merged" the faces of management with the swamp thing, wolfman, and other monsters. It was a hoot! We all ought to disguise our regular AV's . How about some glasses and a beard on your little stick-man, Greg? :lol:

[erck121]

As a webhost i'm very interested in your inputs-

I'm definetly going to install AW Stats on my servers as soon as I can find it, does anyone have a link to where i could download the code?


As far as Urchin, it looks to me like its a flat $695 ontime fee. Thats nothing in comparison to web trend's prices starting at $3,500.

My company is looking to shift its target market in the next few months, and try and advertise as a quality web host, with as many added features as possible, and i'm trying to find a good stats program to go along with that theme.

I use plesk control panel on my servers because it makes my life easy, plesk comes shipped with webalizer, which is what I offer now, and frankly I'm getting sick of it as I get more and more involved in SEO.

What else would you guys suggest I look into? GNU, and priced.

[kneelsit]

Hi erck 21,

aw stats (http://awstats.sourceforge.net/)

That link is http://awstats.sourceforge.net/ in case the link above does not take you there.

Good luck. :)

[Christian_SEO]

I see know that this post is pretty old, but I didn't see anyone address what is the main concern, a reduction in traffic...?

Ranjana, your site is not hosted on the same server anymore, and part of the problem COULD be the site went from having it's own IP to being virtualy hosted. Since the ISP is using a free stats program, they may not have enough IPs for all the clients.

This is only a possibility, not a fact, so some research should be done. I would also ask the ISP about the capacity of the server to handle the amount of traffic it is getting. Also, if a server is overloaded, "hits" will be dropped with no record of the traffic written in the logs.

The type of reporting software also COULD be the problem, but I would look at the change in hosting first as the source of the lower traffic numbers.

I hope this helps,
Christian