Approach

The latest software technology for gathering web statistics uses one of two methodologies: log file analysis or page tagging. Many business webmasters test-drive both approaches to determine which one is more effective, and some decide to use combinations of both in addition to a few other secondary methods. Both of these can be customized to produce real-time web statistic reports that can be further analysed for areas that need future improvement. Using web analytics software as part of regular business operations can be done either in-house or through outsourced consultants. Larger businesses with extensive websites often utilize a team of consultants, each of whom is responsible for different aspects of gathering, storing, analysing, and reporting website data through several different methods.

Log file analysis records the total number of a website’s page requests at given real time interval and since these results to the server used to maintain the site. Log file results can be printed out in similar formats to database tables or spreadsheets. However, this approach of print analysis can very quickly become too labour-intensive and time-consuming. This is brought about the development of specialized log file analysis software. This type of software measures numbers of page requests as well as those of timed-out visits from a specific IP address. While log file analysis has been effective in the past with more simple and static webpages, although more advanced web technology has decreased its effectiveness in recent years. As website caches and cookies have become more prevalent for capturing visitor data, these have overridden the data capture of log file analysis and resulted in less reliable reports from this method.

Page tagging has been developed through applications of JavaScript in order to address some of the challenges presented to log file analysis software. The idea originated from the use of individual web counters that webmasters would place on their sites, which would simply reveal a running number of visitors so far. The coding behind these counters was developed to include automatic placement of a cookie in each unique visitor’s cache to record basic information about their activity on the site. One downside of page tagging is that it requires a separate Domain Name System retrieval in order to accurately capture any given visitor’s IP address. Since most small to mid-sized businesses do not have the infrastructure for an additional in-house web server for this purpose, page tagging often requires the use of a third-party server.