I have been looking for a log file analyser for a while now.
I wanted something that - well... gives me every bit of information on traffic to my sites. Including DNS lookups - and Search Engine stats (query strings, bot visits etc.).
And I was looking for something cheap.
I think I've found my tool of choice. Its not pretty - Its not easy to use - but it is everything I was looking for - and its FREE.
The site says "The most popular logfile analyser in the world"... I don't know about that - but it sure does the trick.
Its UGLY - the configuration is brutal - but there is good news - its an open source project and a lot of people have developed some helper apps to make your life easier. And there are nice folks out there that have taken it upon themselves to write specialized configuration files for search engine tracking and other tasks that might seem monumental ifyou were to do them yourself using the notepad and the documentation alone.
The website has links to all the helper stuff.
Spread the word -
You can also find them on sourceforge.net.
Maybe because the project is so mature nobody talks about it -
Maybe its the best kept secret on the net....
I've been searching for ages for something like this - and i've never seen it come up in a google search before for terms like web log analyser - or web analytics - or anything... Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough... Maybe these guys just don't like to toot their own horns... Who knows... But I've found it now and I couldn't be happier.
andre
p.s. did i mention that it was OS independent - and it could run right on your web server...
Posted by andre at April 23, 2004 03:25 AM