Website Statistics
Depending on your hosting plan, your
account may include different tools to track and report your website
statistics. This document discusses:
- Understanding Website
Statistics
- Enabling Stats Logging
- Viewing Raw Logs
- Log Analyzers
- Urchin
- AWStats (Advanced Web
Statistics)
- Webalizer
- Modlogan
- Protecting Statistics
Understanding Website
Statistics
Information about the operation of your
site is critical for decision-making. To obtain this information, you need
to analyze statistical data that is written to log files in your home
directory on the server:
- Transfer log - stores combined
data about every visit to your site, including:
- Remote host IP (i.e. visitor's IP);
- Time of request (i.e. when visitor requested the page);
- First line of request;
- Error generated by request, if any;
- Size of message sent in response to the request;
- Referrer (i.e. from which page visitor was directed);
- Agent ID (i.e. type of browser or another agent and related information,
such as user's OS, etc.) ;
- Referrer log - stores the list of
URLs from which visitors are referred to your site; and
- Agent log - stores data about
agents used to enter the site -- such as browsers or any other
Internet-based software -- and all related data.
- Error log - stores data about
errors generated by the server (e.g. Page Not Found error) or by your CGI
scripts;
These are called raw logs which
processed to obtain readable information, usually in the form of tables and
charts. So, to start with your website statistics, check if stats logging is
enabled.
Enabling Stats Logging
To enable or disable writing to log files:
- Select domain Info in the Domain
Settings menu.
- Click the Edit icon next to the
Web Service field.
- On the page that shows, scroll down to
the Settings section and click the ON/OFF icon next to the
log files.
Viewing Raw Logs
Raw logs are difficult to read, but luckily
you don't need to do this. However, if you need to take a look at the
logfile records:
- Select Quick access in the
Account menu and click the Web Options icon.
- Choose the necessary domain
- Scroll down to Log files and click the
View icon next to it.
- List of log files shows.
- Click the necessary file and all its
records will show.
Note: Entering end in the Line Number field will show
a list of records from the tail of a logfile.
Log Analyzers
Log analyzers parse raw logs to produce
visual reports in HTML format for viewing through a browser.
To enable these analyzers and view
statistics reports for your sites:
- Select Domain Info in the
Domain Settings menu.
- Click the Edit icon next to
Web Service.
- On the page that shows, enable/disable
the statistics package you want.
- Click the Apply link on the right
of this domain.
- Click the View icon to go to the
page of the statistics report.
This page is renewed once every 24 hours. Please wait till the next
morning to see the report to show up. The report must contain statistics
since the raw logs were enabled.
Urchin
Urchin is a commercial (not free) web analytics software, which can be
available both for Unix and Windows hosted accounts.
Urchin is used on millions of sites
worldwide, including over 20% of the Fortune 500.
Urchin will help you:
* Track overall site traffic, including unique visitors, referrals,
domains, and search engines
* Analyze and improve the quality and loyalty of your site's traffic
* Make more money by maximizing the effectiveness of your search
engine optimization and cost-per-click advertising
Urchin software analyzes your website log
files and delivers fast, interactive reports and graphics on every aspect of
your website's traffic and visitors.
Urchin is easy to install and allows you to
view reports in seven languages, with clear explanations of what you are
viewing on each report.
Urchin is an essential tool for web
designers, marketing professionals, webmasters, and anyone interested in the
success of their web business. Urchin is modular, so you can buy the
licenses that best fit your needs.
AWStats
AWStats is a free web
analytics tool, which can be available both in Unix and Windows hosted
accounts. It generates web, ftp or mail server statistics into graphical web
pages. AWStats statistics for your domain is available in your browser at
http://<your_domain>/cgi-bin/awstats.pl
AWStats has a separate configuration
file for each serviced domain. You can find this file in your home directory
<DOMAIN_NAME>/cgi-bin/awstats.<DOMAIN_NAME>.conf.
To protect your AWStats reports from
unauthorized access, you need to configure access rules for
<DOMAIN_NAME>/cgi-bin/awstats.pl
in the .htaccess
file as suggested in AWStats
Security Tips.
Webalizer
Webalizer is one of
the most popular free statistics packages. It is available only for Linux
hosted accounts. Once you have Webalizer enabled, it starts collecting your
web statistics. You can see it in your browser by going to http://<your_domain>/webalizer/.
ModLogAn
ModLogAn is another
free statistics package included into H-Sphere installation. It is available
only for Linux hosted accounts. You can see Modlogan statistics for your
domain in your browser at http://<your_domain>/modlogan/.
Protecting Statistics
If it's provided by your plan, in H-Sphere
2.5.1 and up you can protect statistics of your site with password. H-Sphere
will automatically use the password of your main FTP user for this purpose.
After you turn such protection on occasional visitors of your site won't be
able to view its statistics simply by using such links as your.site.url/webalizer/index.html.
To enable this protection:
- Make sure to
enable either Webalizer, Modlogan or Awstats, or all of these
before protecting.
- On the Quick Access page click
Stats in the Tools section.
- Click Off in the Web
Statistics Password Protection column to turn it On for a
domain:
Now when clicking
to view stats by one of the three analyzers enter to the prompt your
main FTP login and password.
Note: if one of the three analyzers
being disabled at the moment you turned the protection on was enabled
afterwards and you want to protect it as well, turn for that the Web
Statistics Password Protection option Off and then On
again. |