Website stat collection

[MacAddict]

I am preparing an ecommerce site and had a question on webstats. My chosen cart has the ability to collect various stats, my hosting has stats and I want to use google analytic too. There will be an overlap between these, but what really worries me is that I am just chocking my setup with all of the stat collection.

What does server stats AWstats etc provide that google analytic does not ?

[DuaneJackson]

I've not used it for a while, but I didn't really rate AWStats when I last looked at it.

With Google analytics there are privacy issues if you worry about that kind of thing (Google has all your data)

I guess it's just a matter of playing with the 3, seeing which one you like and then gettong shot of the others.

Neither AWStats or your carts system will have much of an impact on your sites performance.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

AWStats can be configured with some extra options if your host gives you access to the config file.

Including stuff like geoip, keywords searched in specific search engines and generally more detailed stats.

Google is just google eventually they will rule the world, thats another story! Google works but you may see a slight performance impact on your site load. Before someone says no it doesn't it actually does if you look at it properly. Very small but its there.

[conquer]

It might be worth getting a special one written by an outsource programmer. Goog Analytics and Awstats do present things nicely and certainly give accuracy in different ways but sometimes getting someone to build you a custom solution can be better if there is something specific you want to observe. In my experience Google Analytics tends to report more accurate figures vs awstats but then they both have limitations.

[Spiderden]

What does server stats AWstats etc provide that google analytic does not ?
Server stats can provide data on every file accessed on your site including images, Flash, MP3s etc, etc and can also tell you how much bandwidth is being used. GA can only tell you about web pages that have been accessed and even then, it'll only give you data if they're accessed by a browser with JavaScript enabled so it won't be able to tell you anything about misbehaving bots eating your bandwidth or people hotlinking to your images etc.

[Rob Holmes]

If you're in a serious business and want a competitive edge then Google Analytics is the minimum you need (awstats and the other freebies are ok to a level but analytics takes it all a little further)

Even GA has it's limits. For a few grand a year you can get some top notch tracking that far exceeds GA in overall visibility of visitor behaviour, clarity and flexibility of reports that can be generated etc.

[sabian1982]

I'd seriously go with the Google; not only is the interface great, it also filters out false impressions from the likes of bots etc. - you can't get better for FREE, and i'd even say its better than a good number of paid solutions!!!

[sysops]

I'd seriously go with the Google; not only is the interface great, it also filters out false impressions from the likes of bots etc. - you can't get better for FREE, and i'd even say its better than a good number of paid solutions!!!


It's more accurate to say that GA is unable to detect non-browser traffic, rather than that it actually filters it out. This is because it's cookie based counting, and bots don't eat cookies.

This failing is in some ways beneficial, but it leaves the user with no data on how often the site is being spidered, and by which bots.

[Rob Holmes]

If you want to go totally free then I'd recommend Google analytics and http://www.tracewatch.com/

Rob

[MacAddict]

Thanks guys. I guess I will have to keep all 3 for now until I get a feel for the data they generate

[santrush123]

I am preparing an ecommerce site and had a question on webstats. My chosen cart has the ability to collect various stats, my hosting has stats and I want to use google analytic too. There will be an overlap between these, but what really worries me is that I am just chocking my setup with all of the stat collection.

What does server stats AWstats etc provide that google analytic does not ?
bests is google stats..forget all others

[brownie]

bests is google stats..forget all others

A strange statement, can you clarify why you think GA is the best and all others are to be dismissed?

[sabian1982]

Personally i think its the best!!! Used to use awstats (in fact i still have it running on my servers) however i hardly ever look at the awstats information and look at GA every single day... i also match it up with my adsense earnings, google search position and if i was using ppc that as well! For a free service it just can't be beaten!

[brownie]

Best at what? :|

According to those that have tested a few they all provide differing results.

http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/analytics-report-august-2007.shtml

Here is a summary of some factors that would affect the results of the analytics packages we tested equally:

Multiple users on one computer will be treated as a single user.
One user who uses multiple computers will be counted as multiple users.
JavaScript is disabled on the user's browser.
In rough terms, for two of our sites, our data showed that the highest count was about 20% above the average of all the packages, and the lowest showed data about 20% below the average of all the packages.
This variance is largely attributable to design and implementation decisions made by the software development teams that created each package, resulting in greater or lesser accuracy (but there is no way to know which one was most accurate).

[Spiderden]

bests is google stats..forget all others

How can you check for hotlinking or misbehaving bots if you only use GA???
GA is no substitute for server generated stats. Best to use both together.