We run our Apache logs through a very old and creaky version of webtrends - log analyser 7, I think. We haven't upgraded because of the cost of webtrends nowadays. We use Apache's user tracking module also (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_usertrack.html), recording the values of the tracking cookies in our logs. In theory, that should improve webtrends' accuracy, but I haven't noticed a huge difference in the figures it produces with and without user tracking cookies.
Since July, we've been tracking visitors with Google Analytics. Visitor figures are about half those reported by webtrends. Page views are subtantially lower than the figures reported by log file analysis. Makes sense, I guess, since Google Analytics weeds out all the visits from spiders, script kiddies and people who use our pictures in their myspace pages :) Google Analytics seems like an incredibly useful tool if you want to get a good idea of how visitors are actually using your site - how they navigate, what they search for etc. Who has the time to spend using Google Analytics in detail, though?
Jim
Jim O'Donnell (Dr.)
Senior Web Developer
National Maritime Museum
Greenwich
London SE10 9NF
Tel: 020 8312 6517
Fax: 020 8312 6734
http://www.nmm.ac.uk
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