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Web Site Analysis

Table of Contents

  1. Site Analysis Terms
  2. Who provides reports?
  3. Popular reporting packages
  4. Where is it installed?
  5. Conclusion

Part One—Site Analysis Terms

  • Hits
    The term “hits” is both overused and misused in referring to site traffic. However, hits are rather meaningless. A hit is simply a request for a file to your web host. A hit could be a request for the actual page they are on, but it could also be every photo on the page, JavaScript, or CSS file. Thus, hits are always inflated, especially with sites with lots of images and graphical menus.

  • Visitors
    The real key analyzing web site traffic is the number of visitors. A visitor is simply someone that visits your site. Typically statistic programs track both total number of visitors and unique visitors. Total visitors is the total number of visitors to your site which can include the same person making multiple visits. A unique visitor is the total number of different people that have visited your site.

  • Page Views
    The number of page views tells you how many pages were viewed by each visitor. You will be able to quickly see whether the average page view is one (not good), or perhaps three to four pages per visitor. Divide the total number of visitors by the page views to determine the average page view per visitor.

  • Broken Pages
    Almost all tracking software will tell you what files people are visiting. With this information also comes the knowledge of what pages people are trying to visit. Check for 404 errors (there are other errors too), to see what files or links are broken.

  • Search Engines
    Good site reporting software now comes with the ability to track where your visitors are coming from. They will show you the referring web site, the referring search engine, and the search words submitted at the search engine that brought that user to your site.

  • Ad Spending
    Finally, the most advanced site reporting software now tracks your pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Although these typically require additional setup, the information can prove invaluable, as you will know what keyword phrases are costing you money or what keyword phrases are making you money.
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Part Two—Who provides Reports?

If you are hosting your own site (either through colocation, or internally), you can choose a program to install or use a number of free solutions. However, in a shared hosting environment, site reporting is typically provided by your web host. While you can choose whom to host with, that company will have already selected a software product and configured it for their server. The good news though, is that all web site statistics programs are basically the same, the differences lie in whether they provide nice graphs, charts, and how easy they are to use. Some of the most popular programs are listed below.

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Part Three—Popular Reporting Software

  • LiveSTATS by DeepMetrix
    www.deepmetrix.com
    LiveSTATS by Deepmetrix has three products to choose from. LiveSTATS.BIZ is an Enterprise solution for single web sites. Starting at $195 per month, the software solution comes with traditional web statistics, but also includes pay per click and search engine optimization campaign tracking, conversion tracking, ROI, visit browsing, and more. It is geared towards e-commerce companies.

    LiveSTATS.NET is built for single web sites. You can opt for either the hosted model for $49 per month or install the software on a Windows server for $895. This software does not have the full pay-per-click and search engine optimization campaign tracking as the .BIZ version, but the price tag is a lot less.

    LiveSTATS.XSP is geared towards web hosts who need to provide statistics for their clients. It includes numerous automated features, integration with control panels, and can be as low as $1.80 per web site (i.e. $895 for 50 sites to $1795 for 1000 sites). The same analytics are provided in .NET and .XSP version, but the .XSP version includes additional reporting for web host administrators.

  • SmarterStats by Smartertools
    www.smarterstats.com
    According to their own web site, SmarterStats is the perfect solution for providing intuitive web site statistics. With intelligently organized reports, a distributed architecture, and no database requirements, SmarterStats provides an enterprise-level application without the enterprise-level price.

    In laymen’s terms SmarterStats allows you to track all types of data. You can email your reports, export them, and create your own. Multiple languages are supported through the online interface. The product is installed on a Windows server only, but can be used with IIS or Apache. Since the product is geared more towards web hosts, it is free for one site and has different pricing starting at $199 for 50 sites, and going up to $9,999 for 30,000 web sites.

  • Google Analytics (Urchin)
    www.google.com/analytics
    Google has bought the former Urchin web site stats program and modified it for their use. The Google Analytics service is free, but you can also upgrade to Urchin 5 or 6 if you feel the need to pay for statistics.

    For the free Google Analytics, all you need is a Google account and then you can simply drop in some JavaScript code to your existing web site. You now have a quick and easy-to-use reporting package tracking everything typically tracked with any web stats software suite.

  • AwStats (OpenSource)
    www.awstats.org
    AwStats is a free tool that generates advanced web streaming, ftp, or mail server statistics. The software is typically available on Linux budget web hosts as it is open source and free. The software product is simple to use, tracks all types of statistics, and is upgraded through users who donate their time to improving the program.

  • Others
    There are countless other web site stat programs including:
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Part Four—Where is it Installed?

  • Dedicated Server
    Typically if you have a dedicated server, then you will need to install a web stats program. Both Windows and Linux servers already come with the ability to record all raw statistical data for the web site. However, they do not have a stats program to present that data in a coherent fashion. If you have your own dedicated server, then you need to select a stats program and install it on the server. Most stats packages can be installed in less than ten minutes, including the LiveStats, AwStats, and SmarterStats programs above.

  • Shared Hosting Accounts
    The bulk of all web hosting accounts are shared. This means that your site is hosted along with up to several hundred other web sites on one server. The benefits of a shared hosting account are cost of ownership. Shared hosting accounts can range from as little as $5 per month to over $100 per month depending on the bandwidth, technical support, and storage requirements. However, when compared to a dedicated server that starts at $100 per month and can go over $1000 per month, this is a good deal for small businesses. Any good hosting account will come with an installed stats program. The choice of the stats program cannot be modified, but almost any stats program will be sufficient to tell you what you need to know.

  • Hosted Service
    Finally, if your stats program that you are using is not meeting your needs, then you can go with a hosted service such as LiveStats.NET or Google Analytics. With these programs all you do is add in a line or two of code to every page of your web site and you instantly have a new tracking solution. If you want to get more technical, then that line or two of code actually relays information back to another web server (Google or LiveStats) and that information are then recorded on their server, rather than on yours. The good news is that it works the same way. The only down side is that you have to add the code to all pages of your site that you want to track (although this is made easy with templates, includes, or global search and replace functions that most web design programs offer).
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Conclusion

In conclusion, every web site should have a statistics program. Almost all shared web hosting accounts will come with a pre-installed stats program. Although you cannot change the program, it typically will be good enough for your needs. If you do need a more advanced program, then either upgrade to a dedicated server where you can install your own program, or opt for a hosted service to track even more information.

Finally, review your statistics each week if possible, or at the very least each month. Fix any broken links or pages, check out how people are coming to your site, and track the number of visitors and unique visitors that are coming to your site.

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