how often do you analyze your website log?

[alexandra]

how often do you analyze your website log?
I am quite new to website management, and will appreciate your kind input!

[lty83]

When i'm working normal 8 hour shift I usually check them 5-8 times, usually once an hour. Sometimes I only check file size, I can generally get a good idea of visits from that, but half those times I will actually scan them for keywords used, spiders hitting the site, and people trying to access all my pages at once (maybe trying to steal something, code, members etc)

[ogletree]

Normaly once a day unless I just got good placement on a new set of kew then I check 4 times a day. I have a lot of sites so most of them are once a day. Most of the time I just look at the top searches and then the general stats page. Every morning I also check to see how many times GBot has come.

[creative craig]

When ever my mind wanders from what I should be doing :)

Usualy 4 -6 times a day.

Craig

[globay]

I usually check my log files every two days, though if I had more time, I would do it more often.

I also plan to write a custom script to parse the log files (since I have a few web projects on several different servers, I have to check quite a few logs,) in order to get the results in just a few clicks.

[onlineleben]

Usually once per day in the morning. First thing when out of bed and the lady is in the bath (When she gets back, all things are checked). When doing major work on a site, I check more often to see how traffic wanders to new pages etc

[Brett_Tabke]

Several times a day - it's a good 'system health' status check.

[kbba04527]

Usually about 4 - 5 times a day, check Keywords, referring domains and suchlike.

Helps me to build a picture of where traffic could be improved.

[MacroChap]

Check them as often as you can. These forums are great, but they cannot tell you about your specific campaign. Only your logfile can do that. It will hold more information than you will ever have time to interpret and react to.
Try to focus on reading the raw logfile, i find most 3rd party stats packages are wildly inaccurate, and inhibit your ability to learn anything more than your competitors will already know.

[rytis]

A brief check every 3-4 hours,

Every morning - look at general numbers, search phrases etc, but more for anything unusual or potential problems.

Once a month or so - general analysis on phrases and referring sites that sent buyers.

[reddevil]

About 3-4 times per day just because it gets me excited to see people looking at all my hard work.
Although I look in great detail at the visitors who actually send me a message asking for further information - really this is the most important info.

[martinibuster]

Every day for:

Keyword data
To find keywords I need to emphasize better or less on the page.
To find keywords I need to bid on or negative out. To understand how people view your site. I'm also finding that the more links from a certain industry I have, the more visitors I have to similarly related pages- thus it gives me an idea whether I need to beef up links from different but related industries.

Referrer Data
I check who's referring me, and why. Sometimes it's a forum member somewhere asking questions on what's the best widget- good idea to go in there and "lend a hand." Occasionally the referrer may be someone who is linking to you, but with out dated or mistaken information- good idea to head over and fix those. Sometimes you find ideas for link opportunities.

Unique Visitor Data
This is pretty obvious

Top Landing Pages
Kind of related to the keyword research.

These are just some of the data I look at, and how I use it to forward my goals.

Anyone else care to share?

[simonuk]

Because I run so many sites I only check once a day (And that takes me the best part of an hour).

Simon.

[adfree]

Once a day with the tool I use, twice a month I check the raw file not to miss anything and look for suspicious stuff.
Jens

[King of Bling]

Wow, you guys blow me away. Where do you all get the time?

We do a log 'scan' first thing each day, but have to wait on a full WT analysis until closing of each month. We get a wider scope of data to use on making changes going forward.

Good luck

[sdani]

Once a day. I use Pair network, and there is no way at Pair (that I know of) to check the log file before the day is complete.

[WebDon]

I'm trying to get in the habit of doing it at least once a day. Getting behind is a dangerous thing!

[Oaf357]

Usually when I'm in the process of building a site and after it's initially gone live I check it at least twice a day but often more.

On well established sites I check my logs every, single day and read the previous days goings on.

[Josefu]

Once a day - I have the same problem as Sdani but with cPanel : )

There's probably a way around it but this boy's got other occupations and hasn't gotten around to looking... thanks for the reminder.

[Josefu]

Doh - for the current day to-the-minute logs I now download one file, and for 'yesterday's' logs another. Quite efficient system: at the end of every 'day' the day's logs are added to those from the days of the month until then. Then you have 'month' logs... and... yeah : )

[bull]

Several times daily. Quick # of visitors and referer/kw check. Seeking for unwanted bots and offline browsers - I will react immediately via .htaccess ;)

[pearl]

bull,

Just wondering, why do you bother checking daily for unwanted bots and browsers?

[bull]

Why bother

Zero-tolerance policy. Get rid of them before they steal my valuable unique content (for whatever use) or my email addresses (for a well-known use)?
If it's already too good ol' "deny from" will help for the next attempt.

[BigFish]

How do all of you find the time to check gig + (our site's 24 hour logs are close to a gig...) log files DAILY?

[tombola]

Webmasters who don't check their log files daily, aren't to be considered as professionals.

How do all of you find the time to check gig + (our site's 24 hour logs are close to a gig...) log files DAILY?

We don't have time, we MAKE time. ;-)

Besides, there are a lot of stats programs that make this task easy.

[mep00]

Since quite a few have said they check several times a day (or at least would if they could), I'll assume it's a good thing to due. So now if someone could please explain why, I'd be most appreciative.

Bull did say something about bots, which is understandable, but I'm under the impression there are other reasons as well.

[ThomasB]

I think it really depends on the number of sites you manage.

I personally have "tail -f /path/to/access_log" running whenever I want to know sth about a site, looking for a bot or sth like that. It also helps you adjusting links according to click-paths etc

But I do it just a few times, mostly when I have new sites where I wait for GB. :)