Stats/Logs not sure what to do

A few newbie questions..can you help?

[bondjamesbond]

I know this subject has been covered many time before, but I am new to logs and stats so I have a few questions. First of all I run a non-commerical site with lots of information and pictures. I currently use a free stats program that tells me information like which links people have clicked through, terms they have used on search engines etc. It also tells me how many people have visited, where from, browsers used etc.

However to get this to work you have to put a graphic and a bit of javascript on the page. It can only track information for one page, and so if multiple pages are to be tracked, a number of trackers are to be used.

While I like this program, it doesn't look very professional, as a small graphic appears on pages to be tracked. Plus these stats are open to the public so people with similar sites can browse throough the stats. I have been reading here about people looking at their web stats and talking about bots. I have never done this as I was unsure how to.

Should I start using somekind of software to look at my web logs instead of using the graphical stats? Can you recommend any free (or very cheap - remember no money is made from the site, its just me who runs it) programs to view the stats?

Currently the stats work well, but the main drawback is I don't know whats going on the whole site. It would be interesting to know what is the top visited page, the least visited etc across the site.

Can anyone help with these questions? I looked through other threads but I don't understand some of them.

Many Thanks

[edit_g]

There are a few free ones which you can use: Analog or Webalizer (do a search for analog +web stats and webalizere +web stats on G)are a good basic free ones. It also depends on what stats packages you can use with your hosting provider (if you're planning to view them online) otherwise you may have to do it on your local machine and if you have access to your raw logfiles.

Hope that helps.

[bondjamesbond]

I do have access to my web logs from the server. I will have to look into thos two programs you suggested thanks. Do you know of a program that combines information about bots, (basically server log stuff) and information about browsers, page views (generally graphic stats stuff) which can be viewed privately online or on local machine?

[edit_g]

To be honest I think that sort of functionality is something you'll have to shell out a little cash to get... I don't know of any free ones that will do it (there may be some though, I don't know all of them).

You could also write your own script to pick them out - I know that some members here have done just that.

[edit] the other two will do everything you mentioned apart from the search engine bot tracking. I'm not entirely sure but I think Webalizer might also let you track them - it was a while since I used it though. [/edit]

[bondjamesbond]

Any ideas on the kind of prices you would be looking at?

[edit_g]

You can actually get this sort of info for free - Sawmill - for example. If you become a "beta user" and send them feedback (I forget how often).

Other than that you're looking at a whole host of different packages and pricings - from $75 - $10,000... Try this thread for some good suggestions: [webmasterworld.com...]

[bondjamesbond]

Thanks for that. Probably a bit too pricey for me so I might check out Analog and Webalizer.

Cheers

[surferchick]

Try freefind, I think it will do everything you need