There are two dominant ways to track a web site’s statistics these days. The first is analytics, also called page tagging. Analytics basically means putting a piece of code, usually in JavaScript, on each page of a web site. Then, every time one of these tagged pages is opened that piece of code is executed and the visitor’s public information such as IP address, browser, operating system, referrer, etc. is collected and stored for you to analyze later. The second method is a log file analysis. This simply refers to the data that your web server collects.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of tracking. One of the main advantages of using an analytics program is that they are better at tracking actual people because they track browsers instead of server requests which gives you a more realistic view of the visitors to your site. Using an analytics program also allows you to collect more information on your visitors’ web design parameters such as browser versions, platform version, connection speed and screen resolution which will help you in the design and layout of your pages. Finally analytics collects data on the client side so you can avoid any proxy or caching problems. Some disadvantages include not being able to track non-html pages, possible errors on pages due to the insertion of the code and the inability to track search engine spiders.

The advantages of having a log file analysis include the ability to easily track both page errors and search engine spider activity. You can also track non-html pages, such as PDF downloads using this method. Additionally you can see all of your historical data and there aren’t any firewall issues when using a log file analysis. However, if a page has already been cached then no new record is logged onto your web site. Besides that you can’t see as many of the web design parameters of your visitors.

Basically, both of these methods focus on different things. If you are a marketing/business person analytics is likely the most sensible choice. Google Analytics is a particularly good program that is free, but there are also others out there. If you are going to use log file analysis then Clicktracks is one of the best out there because they tend to be good at segmenting out and robot activity, thereby giving you more accurate information about your visitors.

Related posts:

1. Tracking the Success of Your Website – Google Analytics
2. Google Algorithm Update Analysis

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