Mach5 just purchased...how are others using it?

aka FastStats

[esllou]

I have just doled out $100 on Mach5 log analysis (aka FastStats) and was wondering what others used it for.

Or, more generally, how do you use you web log programs. I use mach5 mainly to check referrers for my money pages and to check search engine strings to see what people are looking for ...to see what I need to add to the site.

Any other pointers for this log analysis beginner? I know there is a lot of power in the mach5 filters. I already filter OUT a lot of stuff like .jpg, .gif and "php-ads-new" which takes up 40% of the lines in my logs.

And I run reports that filter IN only my money making pages (I also run whole-site reports too). How are others using the filters?

thanks in advance...

[europeforvisitors]

I have Analyzer Gold, and I use the "Hyperlink Treeview" to quickly see how users arrive on specific pages and where they go afterwards.

I also export the reports in .csv format and import the ones of greatest interest (such as "most popular pages") into Excel for further analysis.

I'd like to use some of the features that require cookies, but my hosting service (Pair Networks) tells me I need a dedicated server for that.

[maswee]

Hi
I am lanning to buy mach5 gold analyser but did not find any information on site regarding for how many number of sites is it applicable and for how long duration. Can u pls clarify if I am paying 199 USD, i will be able to analyse n number of log files and for m years.
Thanks for your response in advance.

[europeforvisitors]

See my answer in this thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[rogoff]

i've just asked for a refund from Mach5 because it doesn't give you one of the most basic stats - 'unique IP addresses'. until they fix this, they won't be getting any cash from me.

[maswee]

Hi rogoff

Which log analyser would you suggest as it should be economical one/

Thanks

[rogoff]

well i've just downloaded Weblog Expert and, from first impressions, it looks excellent. it's got a good list of spiders if you want to exclude them from your reports (Mach5 has a poor spider list) and, more importantly for me, it reports unique IP addresses. hooray! only $75 too :)

[europeforvisitors]

i've just asked for a refund from Mach5 because it doesn't give you one of the most basic stats - 'unique IP addresses'. until they fix this, they won't be getting any cash from me.

I haven't yet found the log analyzer that's perfect, so I use different programs--Mach5 Analyzer and Sawmill--for different things.

[rogoff]

Sawmill looks pretty good. what does Mach5 have that Sawmill doesn't?

[europeforvisitors]

Sawmill looks pretty good. what does Mach5 have that Sawmill doesn't?

It's much, much faster. It also requires less disk space, because it generates reports in real time instead of maintaining a huge permanent database with all your reports. (I use Sawmill for quick views of overall stats by month, day, etc., but I find it too slow to be usful for in-depth study of logfiles--even on a fast computer with plenty of RAM.)

Mach5 Analyzer Gold also has a graphical view that lets you where traffic comes from and where it goes for any page. For example, if you type in "wid," you'll see a box with page names like widget.htm, widget-purple.htm, widget-blue.htm, etc. Pick one of the pages, and a collection of boxes that resemble a flow chart will tell you that 12 users arrived on the page from a Google search on "widgets," another 5 users arrived via a Yahoo search for "widget," another 10 showed up from index.html, and so on. It'll also show you that 54% of the users left the site, another 23% went to widget-page-2.htm, several went to articles-index.htm, and so on. It's easier to use than to describe, so I'd suggest visiting Mach5's Web site to see how it works.