Forum Moderators: DixonJones
any kind of rules/recommendations engine
The major differences between AWstats log file analysis and Google Analytics is that:
1.The data is inevitably different, caused by the different tracking methods used. Because AWstats tracks website stats from the web server, it picks up server calls from search engine crawlers and that in itself makes a huge difference in your stats (depending on the size and popularity of your site). In this day and age, crawl statistics are of very limited value – this should not be a reason not to go for Google Analytics as to most, 9/10 times this info is insignificant
2.AWstats is meant for network administrators and engineers, whilst Google Analytics is made for business owners, marketers and analysts – business focused. A lot of the stats that AWstats provides are purely meant to inform about website functionality and finding out more about the technologies used by the site’s visitors. Google Analytics is a platform that allows you to discover the why’s (or usually why not’s) and how’s of the interaction of website visitors with your site.
Best practices:
1.Set up Google Analytics if you’re serious about finding out more about what’s happening on your website and how you can improve in order to increase profitability.
2.Until GA gathers enough data to start analyzing (you’re looking at months, before any data analysis will make any sense), have your systems administrator set up AWstats if it’s not already being used and request at least 4-6 months of the most recent data to get an idea of the stats that it provides. Even though AWstats data is very basic and raw, it’s recommended to get familiar with the 1997 way of things to better understand what Google Analytics provides you with in terms of data and reports. Your web server is likely to have been collecting data for years, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get a chunk of this data to get you set up with some introductory info on website stats
3.Keep AWstats running. Even though this tool works differently and data volumes WILL be different, changes in traffic and website behaviour will show in similar ways in both tools. In case of significant changes, you’ll be able to call upon AWstats to confirm what radical shifts you see in Google Analytics [googlelytics.net...]
As an aside to this , i like to keep both sets of data running, to provide good historical trends with awstats, whilst Google Analytics provides much more in depth data manipulation and tracking.
It's worth remembering that the methodologies for data collection are different with awstats providing more optimistic figures than GA's notorious under estimations.
I'm no expert in this, so hopefully some of the more experienced members will stop by and add some further inpus.
