Identifying the best web stats program, with Google in mind ...

Help me identify the best web traffic analysis software for Google

[NewQuestions]

Hello everyone,
Jonathan Regan here :)

I recently moved my website to a new hosting location, and
found that they didn't include decent website traffic stats.

As I have taken a super interest in Google, and the spider
process of late, I am wondering if someone could recommend
a suitable website traffic analyis program, that runs on a
server, to identify Google spiders, what they are doing,
and when they arrive etc. The stats program should also be
capable of showing me the search engine phrases that are
used to locate my website.

I realise that my logs can tell me this information, but I
don't have access to them. Your thoughts on this idea are
very much appreciated!

Cheers,
Jonathan
P.S. - Free if possible, but if an amazing stats program
exists online, then I would be prepared to pay for it, if
it is a one time fee. (no recurring services like WebTrends)

[bill]

Analog will certainly do this for you, but may require a bit of customization on your part to get the info you want in the format you want. It's a very powerful software package and it's free.

[chiyo]

Bill is right. Analog is what we use but it is a sophisticated program and has many options and customizability. And you cant be scared of the dot prompt or editing text config files.

Im not sure if ant program is any better than analysing google referrers than any other. All you need really is the ability to identify Google referrer tags, and keywords, and change them as soon as google changes their referrer info!

Others recommend Fast Stats. It is more user friendly, but does not have the control that Analog provides you. I used it several years back and even then would recommend it and i am sure it has developed well. Nothing however beats the ability to configure the reports exactly as you want them from the basic levels of config.

Beware flashy, graphic heavy solutions. They slow down your actual work, and any value added usually comes from pretty graphs rather than smart analysis.

[perch]

123LogAnalyzer is the best for tracking google hits. You can use a googlebot filter to track the spider's activities, and you can aslo see the keyword stats...
But its real power is, you can see how many visitors in UK, used what keywords in google to find your site, and read your promotion page, and finally clicked the buynow button.

I've been using it to track the performance of my Google Adword campaigns and it helps me to keep some hot keyword bids below $1.90 in order to keep profitable. But tracking sales involves some cookie technology. I have my own ssl server and I wrote some cookie tracking scripts to make sure my stats are accurate. So far, the cookie scripts + log analyzer produce about 90% accurate stats.

Here's how I did it:
Place a cookie generating code on every entry page of your sites, recording the entry page url, referrer in to your visitors' computer. Then place a cookie retrieving code on your "order thank you" page. When your visitors finally buy something, you collect theirs visiting history together with their order ID. Now you will know how many sales are from google and you will be able to calculate the ROI, conversion rate, etc.

Here's how I track google bots:
Use the following IP range filter in 123LogAnalyzer
64.68.82.* 216.239.46.*
You will get the activities of googlebots.