Web Analytics Software

I've been fascinated with the topic of web traffic for as long as I've been working out on the net. (Holy cow, is it really going to be ten years next spring?) Making sense of the trails left by web site visitors is an art. While every web server worth its salt creates a server log, it takes a healthy dollop of web analytics software to demystify the traffic flow.

Tearing through the raw server logs can be likened to reading tea leaves. Well, it's not really that mystical, but it can certainly seem arcane. Each request made of the web server creates a new line of data that explains who made the request, at what time, from what page, and with which browser. That's a whole lotta love(ly) data.

Manually scrolling through the logs while attempting to digest all of that data can make you feel a like you've been sucked into a Matrix screen saver. A good web analytics software package refines the raw data, providing a wide range of reports.

Here are some common reports provided by a basic web traffic analyzer:

• How much traffic am I getting on each page?
• How are people finding my site (where are they being referred from)?
• Which search engines are sending me traffic (and for what phrases)?
• What day of the week has the heaviest traffic? Which hour of the day?
• What operating systems and browsers (and versions) are hitting my site?

Most ISPs provide some form of free web analytics software to run on their servers as part of their hosting packages. Analog is "the most popular logfile analyzer in the world" -- due largely to the fact that it's provided free of charge. Web hosts will typically run Analog once a day, crunching the previous days logs. The advantage to server-based web analytics software is that the raw logs do not have to be downloaded to a client computer.

While a great many web analytics applications make use of server logs, others do not. Cookie-based ASP apps are quite popular these days, as they provide real-time statistics. Data can be gathered and analyzed instantaneously, rather than once a day.

Web analytics software pricing runs the gamut. There are standalone products targeted at the single user, at the enterprise, and everywhere in-between. For example, Sawmill Professional starts out at $139 for a single user/profile and runs up to $4995 for a 25 user installation of its Enterprise app. Many of the ASPs charge for their services on a monthly basis, based on volume. The busier your site, the more bucks you'll shell out each month.

VisitorVille is perhaps the most unique web analytics application on the market. You can think of VisitorVille as the Sims of web analytics apps--using real-time tracking, it turns your traffic watching time into something just north of Roller Coaster Tycoon. You get to watch your visitors enter your theme park/web site and move from attraction (page) to attraction (page).