Forum Moderators: DixonJones
I have been after some software which will enable me to look at path analysis, allowing me to track navigation pathways and high exit areas. However, i don't really want to pay £3/4k for a piece of software which will do lots of site logging and only a little bit of path analysis - Some i have found are programs such as StatViz and Pathalizer - Does anyone have any expeience with these?
If anyone knows of any path analysis dedicated software, could they please help? I don't mind paying for some, as long as it provides really good path analysis
Thanks,
Adam
The two you mention from sourceforge look much better - I might even take one for a spin on our server ;)
--- paths that show more than just a couple of steps (configurable number of steps)
--- paths from certain pages, configurable - 1 visit, many paths
--- paths from certain pages, but only first instance of that page in a visit - 1 visit, 1 path
--- paths that show paths through site sections (groups of pages, directories, whatever), not individual pages
--- paths TO a page/site section, not from, configurable
--- paths to exit
--- paths from entry (i.e. 1 visit, 1 path)
--- paths of individual visits
--- path diagrams that are lattices, not trees
--- path diagrams that indicate volume
--- path diagrams that indicate URL on the graph rather than color coding plus a legend
Incluided in the solution would be clear, easily identifiable high exit areas, popular paths etc. - Making the path layout easy to see and show to client would be a great advantage. Programs like nettracker and urchin have really poor path analysis, if you want anyhing remotly good its a case of getting in coremetrics or webtrends, but we can't pay that kind of money.
Is there no single path analysis software, like nettracker but just focus' on path analysis? If not, then there's a damn good business opportunity for someone.
I think the sourceforge programs only work with apache logs don't they? I hope our techie can get them working with ours, as they are not apache as far as i'm aware, and they are about the closest thing ive found to decent path analysis.
The graphs only show the most 'trafficked' links within your site, but that, in conjunction with Webalizer, can give a very good insight with not much thinking required.
IMO if you want to see every path taken by every person then you might as well be grepping the raw logs.
;)
for /f "tokens=1-18" %a in (exyymmdd.log) do @echo %a %b "%f" %d %e %e %g %h %i "%j" >>
access_yymmdd
then removing the IIS header lines of course
(example command; not an actual IIS>Apache arrangement)
The graphs only show the most 'trafficked' links within your site, but that, in conjunction with Webalizer, can give a very good insight with not much thinking required.
where theyre coming where theyre leaving.
I look at avg visit duration. lets you know how long people hang around. For a while I had 50% of visitors staying longer than 30 seconds. Avg visit 312 seconds.
Now its gone to 30% and 220 seconds.
I made some improvements to the homepage (most visited) to try to bring them deeper into the site, by showing off some features of the site better and making it ETO (eye tracking optimization), still waiting to see what happens.
With a low traffic site 2500 pageviews per mo Ill need to give it 1000 pageviews at least to see if I caused a trend.
Did you try Statviz at all? It looked a bit prettier from what i saw - Thanks the log translation information, i'll forward it on :)
