May 19, 2007 19:06
Category: Optimizing
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No, this article on web analytics is not a follow-up on Google Analytics' recent makeover. True, Google Analytics is perhaps the most popular free program of its type, but there are other free web analytics programs that too are good, and in one case (pMetrics) even better according to me.
I'll come to some web analytics programs that I use in one or more sites of mine. Their free versions are pretty helpful. But before all that, here's a quick discussion in this article as to what web analytics is all about, the types that are used, and the options for small website owners.
What Is Web Analytics?
As most readers are aware, a website is hosted in a server, and when the a webpage is visited by a viewer, his browser sends a series of requests to the server to present it in the way the page has been designed.
The so-termed requests are automatically recorded in the log files of the server. When the data from the log file is collated into meaningful information, it is called web analytics.
All host servers have inbuilt visitor tracking software, most common among them are Analog, AWStats, Webalizer, etc. For example, SiteSell, the host of this website offers Webalizer as the tracking software to provide web analytics details.
Types Of Web Analytics
There are principally 2 ways to record visitor activities in a website. One is log-file analysis, the other page tagging.
Log-file analysis is described above. Each time a webpage is accessed, the log-file duly records wherefrom the visitor has come, whether he has clicked a keyword on some other website or has come directly to the page, the time he spends in that webpage, how he exits from the webpage, whether he clicks on any link on the webpage, and so on.
When all these log-file data is arranged by a tracking software or a web analytics program, you get to see a fascinating easy-to-understand date-wise display of statistics and graphs that gives you a telltale story about the overall health of your website.
As opposed to log-file analysis, page tagging is often a JavaScript placed within the opening and closing body tags. Whenever a webpage is loaded on a browser, the JavaScript gets executed which in turn notifies a 3rd-party remote server that houses the main web analytics program to study visitor behavior.
This means if you want to know about visitors to your site, you can see that in the website of the web analytics program whose page tagging script you've used.
Which Is Better?
Log-file analysis is mostly available by default, so there's no question of liking or disliking it. It does give fair details, but some information like number of hits can be misleading. Also, in a few cases, visits by robots and crawlers are not segregated thereby giving inflated figures compared to actual human visits. But the main advantage with log-file analysis is that it'll record a visit come what may.
In sharp contrast, JavaScript based web analytics programs cannot record a visit if a visitor's browser is set to disable reading of scripts and refuse to record cookies that the script places. Which is why JavaScript based web analytics program always gives you far less figures of visits.
Barring this disadvantage, a page tagging web analytics program can provide a mind-boggling array of information which gives a deep insight into how a website is performing in general and how different webpages are performing against one another.
Types Of Web Analytics Programs
Among the log-file analysis tracking software - those that reside on your server - 3 are mentioned above. If you wish to look beyond these, a low cost good alternative is Mint ($30 per site). Mint requires PhP/MySQL enabled server and ability to install and maintain its software. Have a look at some features of Mint.
If server skill is not your cup of tea, which is the case with most small website owners like me, the good news is there are many excellent page tagging web analytics programs out there, some paid, some free.
Here I'll mention 5 of them that have free versions that are very useful - I'm particularly gung-ho about pMetrics. Of the 5, BUMPzee! and MyBlogLog are almost same. I've written in fair details about the free web analytics programs.
- BUMPzee!
- Crazy Egg
- Google Analytics
- MyBlogLog
- pMetrics
Among paid page-tagging programs, IndexTools' Web Analytics needs special mention. Its entry-level edition costs $49.95 and is quite feature-rich.
Can You Use Several Of Them?
But of course you can. This site for example takes help from log file analysis given by SiteSell [], the host. At the same time I've all the above 4 JavaScript based web analytics programs running concurrently for my site.
True, too many JavaScript slow down rendering of webpage on a browser. But since the scripts come at the fag end of the page html just before closing body tag, there is little restriction of the rest of the page showing up fast. The other problem is consumption of higher bandwidth, but that is not an issue for SiteSell.
The upside with all these web analytics programs working together is that you've the advantage of comparing data from them, which in turn helps to clearly understand visitor behavior.
Comparing pMetrics with other web analytics programs (shown partially)
Summing Up
When you use several web analytics programs together, chance is you'll see difference in the figures they show. Often you'll find number of visitors, page views, etc. differing from one program to another.
This happens because the tracking software in each case is different. However, instead of getting bogged down by the nitty-gritty of the figures to the last detail, what a website owner ought to do is to notice major trends that the figures inform.
If they more or less match each other, it is a definite signal about the performance of the website. To that extent, it's indeed a good help having the company of a handful of web analytics programs.
