Log Analysis Software

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Log Analysis Software

Need help finding good log analysis software

nathan_ali

9:27 pm on Mar 2, 2001 (gmt 0)

We are currently looking for some log analysis software and wanted to know if anyone out there has found some that works well for them. Would love your input.

rogerd

10:34 pm on Mar 2, 2001 (gmt 0)

Hi, Nathan. I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but in any case, here are my thoughts. WebTrends is the most popular tool in the market. It does preset reports with some controllable options. Its charts are pretty and it is a low effort tool. Unfortunately, it doesn't always tell the whole story. If you find, say, that Googlebot looked at 20 pages yesterday, it won't tell you which ones unless you create a special filter and rerun the report. I like it for simplistic analysis and for customers who want a general idea of what is going on on their site. The basic log analyzer can be used on many domains as long as you don't want to consolidate the results of multiple domains (you'll need the enterprise version for that).

My favorite is NetTracker Pro. It does extensive reporting, lets you set up and save custom reports, and, best of all, lets you drill down through the data. If you find, say, that Googlebot is listed on your robot summary with 5 visits and 100 pages requested, you can click on the 5 for the details of those 5 visits. If you find that one of the visits was yesterday and that 34 pages were requested, you can click on the 34 and get a detailed list. Most of the reports have this kind of capability. The basic product, though, works on one domain at a time. Upgrades for multiple domain use are available. Graphs are produced on demand, which is a bit slower than WebTrends prepackaged graphs, but I find that most of the time I'm working with the tables anyway.

FastStats is a very quick log cruncher with rather spartan looking results tables. It doesn't track spider visits, as I recall from testing it a year ago; perhaps they have fixed this by now. I don't like it as well as the other two, but it is fast...

There was also a perl script log tool kicking around this site or SEW, but I didn't hunt up the URL.

If you can afford it, go with NetTracker...

minnapple

12:00 am on Mar 3, 2001 (gmt 0)

I just recently purchased OpenWebScope [openwebscope.com...] cost was $69.00.

You run it off your PC and point it to the server log file either on a remote server or locally on your hard drive.

You can run as many sites as you want and has quite a few options on what to or not to include within the report.

The report is html so you can customize how ever you waish after it is generated.

GREAT! GREAT! marketing tool!
I created February reports for all my clients, sent them the report via e-mail. 15% of them called me to do more work for them within 24 hours!!.

This was a great investment.

minnapple

dogboy

2:53 pm on Mar 3, 2001 (gmt 0)

I'm with rogerd, Netracker is the bomb... especially if you have multiple websites

Xoc

7:38 pm on Mar 3, 2001 (gmt 0)

I am using three different logfile analysis packages. I run the reports every night using a script and place the results available on the web.

The first is Microsoft SiteServer Express's analysis package. This is part of the NT 4.0 Option Pack for NT Server, although it should work on log files created by other web servers as well. Very configurable.

The second is Analog. An open source freeware download. Very configurable. Works on all log files.

The third is Weblog. A set of perl scripts for analyzing log file.

You can see samples of the possibilities of these three here: [986faq.com...] .

bartek

6:29 pm on Mar 4, 2001 (gmt 0)

In addition to any full log analyzer, I recommend Relax [lambda.nic.fi] to get a good grip on your referrer info and ever-important inbound link analysis. Neat and free.

awoyo

2:05 am on Mar 10, 2001 (gmt 0)

If anyone is using Analog prior to version 4.16 and 4.90beta3 there's a security advisory that's been posted on the Analog web site as of
Feb 13th, 2001

[mirror.sit.wisc.edu...]

pedros

7:30 am on Apr 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

(edited by: Marcia at 9:10 am (utc) on April 3, 2002)

seofan

7:42 am on Apr 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

pedros - caught your post on another thread.....nice try

bill

7:46 am on Apr 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

That's 4 drops in a row :(

DaveAtIFG

4:15 pm on Apr 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld now has a policy regarding commercial software discussions, don't! "They invite URL drops and always end badly." This thread is an example so I'm locking it up.