Hello!
I've been using Google Analytics to monitor 4 different
sites and having a
single interface made it easier to use the tool across
different sites. I
typically wouldn't be able to get the log files for each
site and have the
same information. It's powerful in that it gathers some
data that a local
installation might be configured to exclude (hostnames,
etc.). The data,
and resulting graphics, can be tailored to specific time
periods, sources,
etc., and make good screenshots for reports to decision
makers.
Another free site I've used and operates in a similar way to
Google was
Addfreestats.com. Their web site is garish, but I still
find that the way
they set up their drill downs from screen to screen work a
bit better than
Google. The overall experience isn't as good, though. I'm
also using the
Google Webmaster tools to monitor activity like ranking in
search results,
which keywords > ranking > clicks to site, etc.
Another point in favor of
the Google machine.
One stats program I've used in a corporate installation was
Unica's
Webtracker (netinsight.unica.com). I don't think the
interface is very
good but - and this probably applies to all of the
fee-based, locally
installed stats packages - I can slice and dice my data much
more closely,
filtering out internal v. external users from a report
without filtering
them out of my logs, etc. Even as powerful as Google
Analytics is for a
free app, it's not as powerful a reporting tool.
An additional benefit to a local install is relying on log
files rather
than a javascript call (like Google or Addfreestats) to
invoke your
statistics gathering. You can be sure everything hitting
your site is
logged. But then you've also got to figure out how to deal
with the huge
log files that accumulate.
My vote's for Google Analytics. It's low maintenance, free,
and there's a
lot of good data that's easy to access and navigate.
Best, David.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David P. Whelan
Manager, Legal Information
Great Library
Law Society of Upper Canada
130 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5H 2N6
tel: 416.947.3438 fax: 416.869.0331
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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