Verifying web stats of another website

[gbl]

I have been asked how to verify statistics presented by someone regarding their website. I understand that it is possible to check conventional web site statistics of someone else's website. Are there programs for this? If possible, I am interested in something independent of the webstats reports that the website owner would collect in order to report the stats to third parties.
I could not find another web related forum to ask this question.
Thanks for any help.

 

[Foamcow]

You can only check the stats if you have the actual logfiles from the site in question.

Either that or have some software running on the site's server that provides stats reports. Such as Matrix Stats, bbclone or similar.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[gbl]

Thanks for the help. Foamcow.
Actually I have been told that one of our clients who is in web design has actually made some comments to us about our webstats. This client is in web design. We are now needing to verify someone's claim about the the number of visits to their website; if someone can read ours without us knowing it we should be able to read others'. We do not host our website, it is elsewhere so I doubt this is an issue of someone getting data through a security breach of our system.

 

[Foamcow]

What were the stats? What is the site?
Did they get them from somewhere like Alexa?
In which case they will be pretty inaccurate.

You CANNOT read the actual webstats of another site unless you either have access to the site's log files OR access to an application running on the server.

Just because a site is hosted elsewhere, do not assume there is not a security problem. It is absolutely possible.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[Foamcow]

On the subject of Alexa, it will let you find information like this:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=www.tek-tips.com

However, the traffic analysis is based on users that report their surfing habits back to Alexa/Amazon via the Alexa toolbar.
The results are further skewed when you consider the sector of the web community that will have the toolbar installed. For example, they are unlikely to be from the IT sector.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r