awstats

[Olly]

I am having alot of trouble installing awstats. after several unsuccessful attempts i'm not sure what i'm doing or wether its right or not.

could someone with experience of installing awstats please help.

My host is clarahost if this makes any difference.

thanks
Olly

[retekdirect]

If your hosting is on a virtual server or shared server, you'll run into problems. As i understand it, it must be installed server-side, and cannot be installed on virtual server roots (as it's not the true root).

You should contact your host and ask about any existing server-side stats they may have, or if they are able to install AW for you.

[jont]

CLARA uses Webalizer Stats which you can access at http://stats.yoursite.com/ to bring up the monthly overview and then click on each month for a more detail analysis.

HTH

[george]

Jont, slightly off topic but have you ever tried adjusting the settings so you can see the full lists, instead of the Top 30 for example?

[jont]

No - never dabbled with the stats at all - do you know how/if this can be done?

[george]

Believe it can. There's a link at the bottom of the page (your stats page) that allows you to investiate the proggy.

[Bob Isaac]

The setting for this is in /etc/webalizer.conf. Unless your ISP has created a CP for individual user modifications, it will only show the default settings.

Bob

[jont]

George - have just installed SurfStats Log Analyzer which works perfectly well with the CLARA generated log files and provides all the stats you could think of - makes the standard webalizer reports supplied by CLARA look very primitive indeed.

[ChrisL]

Re: SurfStats Log Analyzer

Jont,
Do you have any opinion as on this yet?

I've been trying to find a 'good value' web log analyzer for some time.

I need somthing that will help determine which specific adwords/overture payments are working for me, as well as helping determine how people enter & navigate the site etc.
I've tried eWebLog Analyzer for the 30-day trial period, but gave up after about 15, so don't want to pay to continue with that.

My site runs on an Apache virtual server at DSVR

[jont]

Only been using a couple of days but gives the following reports:

1. Summary Overview

2. Site Activity :
Hour of Day
Day of Week
Day of Month
Detailed Daily
Detailed Weekly
Detailed Monthly
No. Views per Visit
Time spent on Site

3. Client Activity:
Most Active Clients by IP
Most Active Clients by Organisation
Authenticated Top Clients
Most Active Countries
Most Active Regions
Most Active Organisations
Organisatiosn Summary

4. File Page Activity:
Most Least Downloaded Files
Most / Least Frequented Pages
Top Entry / Exit Pages
Most Requested Images
Most Requested Audio / Video / Unknown
Site Bookmarked
Single Acess Pages
Most Downloaded File Types
Most Access Directories

5. Advertisement:
Ad Clicks
Ad Views

6. Browsers:
Most Used
Netscape
Internet Explorer
Visiting Spiders
Download Managers
Most Used Platforms

7. Browsers:
Frame SUpport
VBScript Support
Javascript Support
Java Applet Support
ActiveX Support

8. Referrers:
Top Referring Site
Top Ref URL
Top Search Engines
No Hits from Search Engines
Top Search Phrases
Top Seach Keywords
Search Phrases per Engine

9. Errors:
Server Errors
Summary HTTP Errors
Requestes Causing Errors
Detail Daily Errors

10. All Reports

[jont]

The "no hits from search engines" was very useful as it helped identify a couple of search engines not listed with - although some were listed but had not been used. The keywords and phrase page is invaluable to see how what people are searching on to find you.

Bizarrely enough the coupon (from .NET magazine 128) which should have expired Feb 2005 is still active by the looks of it at http://www.surfstats.com/ss66/future/specialoffer.asp the cart shows usual price £55.66 and discounted to £44.53

Not gone through to checkout so the expired coupon may get flagged at a later stage but it seems to have accepted it!

[Bob Isaac]

We hear so much about statistics on the news, and how many people believe they are true. I think a recent poll showed 4 in 10.

For web stats I suggest you first read this:

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

Surfstats certainly 'looks' impressive, and certainly is a lot better than Webalizer. But does it give more information than something like Awstats. Maybe because it 'looks' good it is better? But are you paying for the look or more info. After peeling away the cosmetics from Surfstats I don't see much more of use than is in Awstats.

Bob

[wjcampbe]

Chris - looking for something like this?

Select Phrase by Search Engine, select one phrase from one engine, click the phrase - narrow the date range, then zoom to report session paths - get this sort of detail...

[jont]

You can have all the statistical info in the world but it is analyzing what they actually mean and then acting accordingly - analyzing the log files is one thing - deciphering and implementing changes (if any) to the site are another.

If the top search keywords bringing people to your site is Widgets but you have yet to sell a Widget then something needs addressing - do you reduce the price of Widgets or do you optimise every other page so your top selling products are then featured at the top of the keywords searches? As with any statistic it can be interpreted in a 101 different ways depending on what outcome is wanted - and without sitting on the shoulder of every visitor to your site and asking their reasons for visiting and leaving it is a minefield to decipher.

Then again you can never have to much information

[ChrisL]

Jont & wjcampbell

Thanks for your trouble, there's a lot to look at here.
As one of you points out, it's being able to 'drill down' to hard information that is the problem. It is so easy to get bogged down in data, whilst getting no real information. I've even loaded sets of logfile into a text editor, extracted every line containing 'Google' and then tried to make sense of the result. But there's only so many hours in the day...
The best I can hope for is to get some kind of overall sense of trends, as I don't want to analyse to death and find I've got no real work done.
Both Sawmill & Surfstats have free trials available, so I'll just have to try both out.
Again, thanks