At this juncture, I encourage you to go explore your log
files. You've got enough under your belt to start analyzing your site
activity. But before you go dive into your logs, I have a few hard-won tips and
hints to pass along.
One point that I can't stress enough is the importance of long-term
logging. If your Web server is configured to erase your old log files every
month, either change the server's configuration or save a copies of your log
files locally. It's very insightful to see the differences in site traffic
over a four-year period. For example, by looking at the user agent information
over time, you can see how quickly and how often your users upgrade their
browsers or operating systems to the latest versions.
When you're looking at your log files, either in raw form or in an
analyzer, you'll probably notice a file called "robots.txt" in
your root directory that's getting a whole bunch of hits. Don't worry,
that's not a mistake — it only means that a search engine robot was
crawling your site. Search engines send out their robots, also called
spiders or crawlers, every now and then to crawl the Web and see what's out
there. If you include a robots.txt file in your root directory, you can give
specific instructions to a robot: Tell it to go away, or
point it to the information that you would like to make searchable. For more
information on how the robot.txt file works, visit the Web Robots
pages.
And here's a handy trick to take with you. Did you do your good Monkey
deed and create a favorites
icon for your site? If so, you can find out how many people are actually
seeing your icon simply by running a report that counts hits on your
"favicon.ico" file.
That's it for Web logs! But really, it's only the beginning of
the user tracking game. For in-depth information about tracking and utilizing data, read Bill's tutorial
about these very topics. To understand the importance of knowing your
audience, check out Lesson 2 of Josh and Oliver's Market Research on the Web tutorial. Or just give your eyes a rest and go protest the
production of the wooden kind.
