[Update: more suggestions...]
I've had a number of responses to yesterday's post on web stats packages. Thanks to everyone who responded so far with ideas. Here's what I've seen (and I haven't really researched any of these in an in-depth way yet, this is mostly a compilation of the emails I've seen so far):
Urchin, recommended by Rich Brooks and the UW server guys, too. Interestingly, Urchin was acquired by Google about a week ago. Hmm....
NetTracker, recommended by George Smith. The NetTracker site uses the word "solutions" a tad too often for my taste, but George mentioned they have a free version: NetTracker Lite. Looks to be worth checking into.
Opentracker.net, recommended by Jon.
StatCounter, recommended by Donald Clark. This looks like one of those tools where you place a bit of javascript code on the pages that then talks to the hosted stats system. I know this isn't uncommon (in fact, it is how all of the hosted products work, I'd imagine), but, call me old fashioned, for some reason I was thinking that a product that analyzed the server logfiles might be better. Especially because I have six months or so of old logfiles sitting around that I could mine for data now. At the very least, I could use it to set a baseline before we go about making changes. But, I can see the advantages in a hosted product, too. There are reports (like screen resolution) that you just can't get through Apache server logs...
LiveStats. Former co-worker Kevin reminded me that we once tried to use this product. It, well, uh, wasn't that great then. But, as he mentioned, it must have improved since then, 'cause it didn't have anywhere to go but up.
So, keep those emails coming in with recommendations or experiences. Meanwhile, here's a list of other products I've run across while researching:
[Update] Nick Finck (of Digital Web fame) echoed the Urchin recommendation (see above), mentioned WebTrends (see above, again), and threw in a heretofore unknown (to me) candidate: Absolute Log Analyzer. This is stand-alone software -- in other words, it doesn't require a web server like most of the products listed above do. I generally picture server-based software when I'm thinking of web stats packages, but I think it might be worth giving the trial version a spin.
Posted by Karl
May 10, 2005 03:38 PM