PPC > Reviews> Utilities

Web Site Traffic Analyzer

Assess your site’s popularity by analysing hits, bandwidth, and download requests. Then finish it all off with a nice custom report, writes Dave Cook.

It’s all very well building a professional-looking Web site, but how can you keep tabs on the number of visitors your site is attracting? Well, that depends a great deal on the efficiency of your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or Web server.  

Most ISPs accumulate a variety of information each time someone accesses your site. This data is recorded to a log file, which is then stored in a special folder on your site. It’s then up to you to download the log file using, for example, a simple FTP (File Transfer Protocol) utility. After which, depending on the format of the log file, a simple text editor such as Notepad might be all that’s required to peruse its contents.

In reality, though, things are generally not quite that simple since log files can be quite detailed and, to inexperienced users, difficult to comprehend. For example, your typical log file will contain each visitor’s domain name or ISP address, the date and time site access occurred, the name and size of the files accessed.

And that’s often just for starters. To discover what this information really means in relation to your site, it makes sense to use a statistical analysing tool such as Web Site Traffic Analyzer from Intelliquis International.

File Format Support

Traffic Analyzer supports all the major Web server file formats including Apache, Apache Extended, Apache multiple file format, standard NCSA log-file format, Microsoft IIS, Zeus, CERN common and combined, plus a few more besides.

You can analyse log files locally if they’re stored on disk or on the network, or you can instruct Traffic Analyzer to download the files from an FTP site or Web server and then analyse them. 

Analysis includes a host of general statistics for generating custom reports in HTML or word-processing formats. Itemised lists are also provided that display your site’s most accessed pages, files, and images. Other itemised information includes graphs that show the number of daily hits, bandwidth, and the site’s most popular visiting times in hours and days per week. Graph designs, though, are fairly basic.

Moreover, Traffic Analyzer is one of the fastest programs of its kind and is capable of scanning an entire Web site in minutes. During tests, it successfully processed 50MB of log files held locally in just a fraction over one second.

There’s More

For users that require even more detailed reports, a Traffic Analyzer Platinum edition is also available. Platinum edition includes all the tools of the Standard edition, plus the following:

·          Domain/IP-address exclusion - exclude certain addresses (such as your own) for accurate traffic analysis

·          File monitor – monitor which site files are attracting the most attention

·          Referrer Information - track how visitors were able to find your site

·          Site map page view – discover how traffic flows through your site

Verdict

Traffic Analyzer is an appealing way to determine the popularity of your site. Sites are scanned quickly and analysis is even faster. Reports are easy to understand, and help identify exactly which areas of your site create the most interest.

Dave Cook

 ^top