Jim
We have had the same dilemma with switching (and the same c. 50% reduction you mention), but alongside GA are also using Awstats to analyse our own logs as this shows us both 'viewed traffic' and 'not viewed traffic' (Awstats states "Not viewed traffic includes traffic generated by robots, worms, or replies with special HTTP status codes.")
This two-pronged approach gives us pretty much everything we want - Google Analytics gives us the detail and pretty reports, whilst Awstats gives us back compatibility for comparison with historic figures.
As to how you deal with 'nervousness', there's no easy technical solution to that one ;)
James
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Jim O'Donnell
> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 12:35 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Measuring web site visits
>
> Thanks,
>
> This is really useful. One thing I forgot to ask - those
> people using log analysis, do you filter your logs at all or
> measure every request, including requests from spiders and
> scripts that are crawling your site? I'd estimate that up to
> half the requests to our web servers are not real site users
> looking at web pages.
>
> We'd like to switch from log analysis to Google Analytics.
> There's some nervousness about the apparent drop in visitor
> figures. GA reports figures about half of those reported by
> web trends, but I think that could be evened out if we
> filtered our logs before running them through web trends. Has
> the diffrence in figures been a problem for anyone else?
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of
> >Sexton, Charlotte
> >Sent: 02 January 2008 12:12
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: Measuring web site visits
> >
> >Hi Jim,
> >
> >We are currently using a combination of LiveStats (a log
> files analysis
> >tool) and Google Analytics.
> >
> >The plan is to ditch LiveStats and move all our reporting to Google
> >Analytics.
> >
> >In the longer term we will use Google for measuring our success at
> >meeting specific targets...
> >
> >Best
> >Charlotte
> >
> >--
> >Charlotte Sexton
> >Deputy Head New Media
> >National Gallery
> >Trafalgar Sq
> >London
> >WC2N 5DN
> >Tel: 0207 747 2850
> >http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
> >
>
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