Advice on website traffic tracking

[monkle]

Greetings,

I am the webmaster/developer for a commercial website. In hopes of studying traffic on the site and making improvements that will drive more sales, I want to install traffic tracking software on the web server, so that I can see if/where we are losing potential customers, as well as know exactly how much traffic we are getting and where they are going/what they are doing on our site.

I am looking for advice on the best way to go about this. I know that, given the time, I could write it into the website myself, but time is of the essence. I need a robust piece of software that won't take too long to install, and if it's software that my company will have to pay for (which I'm fine with, if the software is worth it), then I need something that I can convince my superiors is worth the money.

I would rather have software that does not report back to the developer, or require any outside resources to run.

Links to recommended software, software reviews, resources that talk on the subject, and any words of wisdom or advice, are all heartilly welcomed. Thanks for your input.

 

[Volk359]

Try

http://www.statcounter.com.

It's free and should give you what you need. I just started using it and am happy with it so far.

 

[monkle]

Volk359:

This looks like very robust software, however I do have one concern regarding it:

The data collected about your website and it's traffic is both stored and also owned by StatCounter, not the operators of the website. I may look into this farther, but at this time I do not know if that would be acceptable.

 

[ChrisHirst]

this already exists on the site in the form of the site logs.

You simply need a log analyser.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[monkle]

ChrisHirst:
Thank you for your input. Are there any log analysers that you would recommend? I see quite a number of them on the web, and have no experience to know which ones are good, if there are any of them that should be avoided, or any free ones that make buying a comercial log analyser pointless. If you don't have the answers, but know someplace where I can find reviews/suggestions, I'd love to hear more.

 

[ChrisHirst]

Have a look through the Server logs and tracking forum at HighRankings and there is a list at Clickz

Personally I use FunnelWeb.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[ChrisHunt]

Your server logs are being accumulated anyway, so you can try several analysers till you find one that suits.

I've been using Statcounter for six months or so. It doesn't bother me that they're storing my data - what would they use it for? Because it's javascript-based it can tell you some things that server logs can't, like the screen resolution of your visitors or whether they have Javascript enabled. It won't cost you anything to give it a go.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[monkle]

Thanks for all your input. You have helped shed light on a section of this field that was previously unexplored, for me.