Log Analysis

[jitesh]

I want to do some access log analysis. I have a multiserver site which produce a huge amount of log every day, which is impossible to study manually. I need some software to do it for me. What is the best software in the market which can handle a big amount of data and can generate some good report.

[Kal]

Web Trends stand alone is excellent, but expensive. Web Trends Live is also good, is a lot cheaper, but is Internet based (you add code to your site and view results via the WebTrendsLive.com site).

Statistics Server is good and there are many others. Conduct a search in here for log file analysis for more suggestions :).

[amica_webmaster]

Jitesh,

It's important to establish priorities when searching for this (or any) type of software. There are many web tracking products on the market, with a wide variety of capabilities and just as wide a variety of prices.

What kind of information would you like to obtain from your log files? In what form do you want that information? Do you have specific business uses for the information? If so, so you know how you would like to obtain value from the information in the logfiles?

If you invest some effort in defining what you really need and what the information is worth to you, you'll be in a good position to select a product that really works for you. I expect you'll get the most meaningful suggestions from others if you can explain what you wish to accomplish in a bit more detail.

Meta

[jitesh]

Basically want to see my referrals stats, want to know about from where is the traffic coming from? and specially the search engines. This is only for internal use and not for commercial purposes. The information will be best if it's give me a graphic representation in .html files. The software can access the log file both from the server (online) or from local hard disk. The only thing the s/w should support is huge log files.

[robwatts]

Try this one for size http://analog.cx/

No fluff or frills, but may do the job that you want.

[DLSWeb]

Anybody used FastStats?
http://www.mach5.com/products/analyzer/

I have used it for a couple of years but do not have a comparison for it since I have used no other.

[Alan Perkins]

One of my clients already had FastStats set up so I used that for a while. I've also used Analog, Webtrends Enterprise, Webtrend Live and a few others. My favourite all-rounder is Summary (http://www.summary.net/) - it will do exactly what you want, Jitesh, and there's a time-limited fully featured free trial version.

[kneelsit]

You might also like to look at AW Stats.

Our host provides it free on our C Panel. gives excellent results - particularly on the visits and hits from the variious bots and spiders and the comparisons of hits from all the SEs.

[jitesh]

Thanks everybody, for those quick and helpful replies.

I tried both analog and FastStats but none of them worked out. Analog's report was not that impressive, and faststats cannot handle big log files....always gives an error.

[DLSWeb]

Only as an FYI,
here is the response from faststats regarding large log files

Thanks for the heads up, and it is in fact a known limitation of FastStats - it can't analyze files larger than 1 gig or so. Our alpha of version 4 (which is really awesome!) can double that, roughly, which is good, and is also even faster. But we do recommend people actually ROTATE their logs rather than let them build up into one huge monolithic mound.

[Kal]

I've been trialling Click Tracks (http://www.clicktracks.com) over the past couple of days and wow! Some of the stuff it can do is amazing, especially the visual link conversion tracking :eek:. Works well on large raw log files but the trial only analyses a week's worth of data.

[jitesh]

I had just used the trial version of Summary, It is really superb !!..... But costly :rolleyes:

But the suggestions here are really helpful, keep it up guys.:cheers:

[staceym]

I have used Sawmill with great success

http://www.sawmill.net/

Ity has some very valuable features, such as allowing you to see people's paths through a page ie so many sessions started on this page, so many went to your index, so many left etc.

It really needs to be tried just to see what it can do.

Regards,
Stace

[scottiecl]

Welcome to the forum, Stace! :hi:

[mmmpph]

Originally posted by staceym I have used Sawmill with great success http://www.sawmill.net
Had some difficulties with Sawmill and decided not to purchase it. However, it may have had something to do with the size of the files themselves. Up to 15 megs per day in size and we were trying to do month long analysis. Import process could take several hours on a fast machine. Importing a few days was not an issue though so perhaps it just isn't a volume application.

Best
Steve

[amica_webmaster]

Originally posted by jitesh
I had just used the trial version of Summary, It is really superb !!..... But costly :rolleyes:

Gosh, Jitesh, they are only asking $59 for the personal version, and it handles three domains. :violin: Software developers have to eat.

Meta

[qwerty]

I've done trials of Web Trends, Net Tracker, and Click Tracks. Of the three, I'd say I preferred Net Tracker, but they were all too expensive for me.

For the time being, I have to use the application my host provides (Stats Plus) and occasionally go through the raw log files for more detailed information.

[scottiecl]

I have used Net Tracker and really liked it. It is expensive, though.