If you're looking for an application that can generate fast, effective
reports of any kind and display them in a format that's easy to read and
understand, you have several options. The applications we'll be looking first are commercial
products (i.e., they cost money), but they also come with technical support and they're built with the newbie user in mind.
First up is some software from WebTrends, which is the industry leader for log file reporting
applications on the enterprise and small-to-medium business level. Even
the single-site analysis application, WebTrends Log Analyzer, is widely
used by webmasters of small sites who want to keep a close eye on their
users' habits.
WebTrends Pluses
To a new user, the most appealing aspect of the WebTrends Log Analyzer is
the user-friendly interface. When you launch the program, you are
presented with a wizard that helps you build a profile for your site and
locate your log files (either locally or on your Web server). As you
generate reports, you can use your mouse to select or deselect different
stats from a list.
Click picture for full size screen shot
This type of selective reporting is useful if you'd like
to isolate certain information, such as peak usage times or advertising
click-through numbers. The program crunches through your server logs and
generates a local folder full of navigable HTML files that you can sift
through with your browser.
The advantages of the WebTrends analyzer are its ease-of-use and ability to
generate just about any report you could possibly want. The amount of
information that WebTrends spits out is staggering — it took me a few
tries to pare down my desired stats to something even vaguely readable. Also, WebTrends software can interface
with all of the big Microsoft Office products, which means you can dump reports into
MS Excel or MS Word.
WebTrends Minuses
There are two disadvantages to WebTrends Log Analyzer. The first is that
it only runs on Windows. The second sticky point is the price. Even though
WebTrends offers tiered pricing — separate packages for e-commerce,
enterprise, and even a full-featured hosted solution — the low-end starts
at a high price. And then you have to pay extra for technical
support. The WebTrends Log Analyzer that I used is $699 US by itself, and
$838 US if you purchase it along with a year of telephone support. View some
sample reports, and download a trial version.
Sawmill Pluses
Another commercial log file analyzer with a significant amount of gusto
is Sawmill. Sawmill is
not as feature-rich as WebTrends, and it may not look as pretty, but it
certainly gets the job done.
Sawmill's interface is entirely browser-based. Plus, they've included a
quick start option for the anxious webmaster — all you need to do is tell
it where your server logs are, give the report a name, and click Submit. The
reports that I generated were for the entire six months that my site has
been active, and the detail was surprising. The program's navigable calendar
makes it simple to zoom in on a particular month, week, or day and view only
the stats for a specific span of time. Every report you need is just a click
away — referers, browser type, operating system, domains of the visitors,
and others.
Click picture for full size screen shot
With all that functionality, Sawmill is a bargain at $99 US for a
single-user license. Telephone and email support are free. It also runs on a
wide variety of operating systems: not only Windows and Linux, but also Mac
OS, BSD, and even BeOS.
Sawmill Minuses
The only disadvantage is that the interface can be obtuse. The user experience is not as professional and thorough as WebTrends. Even so, Sawmill gets the Monkey stamp of approval. Find out for yourself by perusing the fully browsable
sample reports, and downloading a free trial.
There are literally hundreds of commercial log analysis packages in the
marketplace. Download a few and take them for a spin.
If you are running Windows, try Surfstats, NetGenesis 5 from NetGenesis Corp., or FastStats Analyzer from Mach 5 Enterprises. For the cross-platform crew, including Mac and Unix, try FlashStats from Maximized Software, ThinWEB Technologies' WebCrumbs, or Laurent Domisse's W3Perl.
Now let's have a peek at the shareware and freeware options for analyzing those log files.
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