Remember when you knew nothing about tracking?

Tracking basics for newbies ''in the beginning...

[claimsweb]

Well do you remember?
You may know plenty now and may be able to wax lyrical to your boss about stats till he walks away puzzled yet somehow content. I know nothing about tracking and need to learn and this seems to be the best place on earth to do that.

Hello all,
I run a sole trading business website and have just switched to a new host who provides basic but fairly useful log data. However I need to dig deeper and despite having read this forum I cannot find any threads that deal with users at the bottom end of the food chain like me.

My host provides poor service in relation to log queries and basically Im on my own. I dont have an IT budget as such and basically try to do it all myself - that said Im making a spin so I must be doing something right.

Ive read the threads on free log analysis programs and have actually downloaded weblog lite but cannot link it to my log URL and basically dont know where to start.

What Im really after is a useful thread or two that deals with users at my level and some general tips. I cannot find one despite seeing a few that come close and do educate to a degree.

I dont even know for example how the log programs link up with my hosts server or log files - so far Ive failed to use even a simple program like Weblog-lite.

Any help greatly appreciated (surely Im not the only inexperienced loglurker out there?!)

Many many thanks well in advance

Clancy

[diggle]

Hi,
I used the free service on Hitslink and found them so useful, that I decided to stick with them after the free period. It is very easy to access and operate and they provide in-depth reporting. To keep the costs within reasonable bounds, just put the code on your most important pages.
Have a look at their website. I am sure you will find it just what you need.
Try it free for a month and see how you feel. You can't lose anything.
I have no connection with this firm.

[caine]

You need to get your ISP to put something more useful on the web server that hosts your site.

In particular something like analog or webtrends.

[Mardi_Gras]

Don't feel like too much of a newbie - as you can tell by all of the threads here on tracking, there are very few who are not looking for "something better."

It sounds like you want to run a log analyzer on your local machine and analyze the logs as they sit on your server (as opposed to using a web-based log analyzer or downloading the logs to your local machine for review).

Do you know the location of your log files on your host, and the format they are stored in? Your log program will need to know exactly where to look, and what to look for. You can use an FTP program to log into your site and look around for the logs.