by asha » Tue Jun 10, 2008 10:17 pm
Generating website statistics - a surefire step in internet marketing
There is a popular impression that web is a place where one can remain anonymous after doing disreputable activities or any silly gimmicks. This however, is a myth as this notion is proved to be wrong with the emergence of web statistics (web analytics) generating facilities, which enable website owners to track visitor information related to their websites. While things like visitors’ name and residential address can remain secret while they are surfing the internet (unless they go ahead and volunteer the information) most websites gather information about the visitors to their sites through the web pages sent to the user’s PC. Website statistics figures have a broader meaning than mere tracking for user details; it determines how to organize and reorganize the internet marketing strategies for a website. For website owners generating web statistics is a major step in improving and leading their online business.
Dynamic monitoring and analysis of web logs are the two basic ways that generate or analyze and record statistics of traffic to a website. Real time monitoring of number of visitors to a website is possible with dynamic monitoring. Generally, a website counter displays the number of hits of the page, and the number is updated every time a new user utilizes the site. The display is in the form of a ‘counter’ or an image (an advertising banner) that is positioned on the index page of the site. For recording counts a program usually a CGI Script or a server side application is executed, which records IP addresses of the users each time when users’ browser requests the image. This helps in identifying the different IP addresses that have used the site. Having a hit counter is a good option for sites that don’t have a web server of their own.
Analyzing the log files of web server is a more reliable way to generate website analytics. Each time a website is accessed, a request is sent to a server for accessing it. This request is recorded in a standard log file format, which furnishes highly accurate data for establishing the popularity of the site. Some of these log files are Access log, Referrer log, Error log etc.
Thanks
Asha