33 replies to this topic

[Ash Taylor]

HI

I am looking to establish some web analytics for the company I work for. It is quickly growing, and currently has approximately 2 million views per year. Amongst other things we run an online dealing platform. Consequently I IT and marketing information is paramount. Currently I am looking at Siteimprove, webtrends and whether we should use a log analyser instead.

The IT department are currently wanting to use log analytics as it doesn't require changes to the website, and they think it can give all the required information. I am from marketing and am leaning towards webtrends because I think it has the capability to meet the marketing needs of the company over the coming years. For instance it has email campaign tracking and the marketing warehouse.

I have looked about on the web but am still finding it difficult to find out what the advantages and disadvantages of both methods are today. Can anybody help? Is anybody in a position to make recommendations?

From what I have read webtrends can be a nightmare to establish - but has great functionality. Clicktracks sounds like it doesn't have the required IT information. Additionally it sounds like Caching and accurate unique visitor counting can be an issue for Log file analysis (anything else?) and that page tagging doesn't identify robots. IT also has indicated website speed, and the risk of a external servers going down as a crucial issues

Thanks

Ash

[Tim Leighton-Boyce]

Wow, Ash, you seem to have revived a very old thread on a topic which is currently attracting much attention in the analytics world.

Take a look at

www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/05/redefining-conventional-wisdom-on-enterprise-class-web-analytics.html

which addresses the subject of what companies need and what they think they need. Read back in Avinash's blog and you will be able to find several really good posts on chosing appropriate tools. It's one of the best resources on the subject out there.

[reggiedog]

Matt: I am using an older version of WebTrends (log analyzer 4.2...I don't have the money for a new version and it does, did, all I need, which is to see the domain names of PC's that have checked out my site...I am a small business with maybe 5 people looking at my info site a day. I just use WT to see if a person I talked to on the phone has bothered to check out my site.)

We switched Internet access providers and now the WT reverse lookup on the "most active organiztions" does not reverse the IP into a domain name, so I have to manually cut and paste the IP into WhoIs to figure it out.

I have tried to find where my set-up is wrong. Would you know what I am missing by any chance?

Thanks!

[flexiblefine]

We switched Internet access providers and now the WT reverse lookup on the "most active organiztions" does not reverse the IP into a domain name, so I have to manually cut and paste the IP into WhoIs to figure it out.

I have tried to find where my set-up is wrong. Would you know what I am missing by any chance?

I think the old WebTrends products used a plugin on the web server to do reverse DNS lookup. At least they did on Windows. Trying to find those components for Log Analyzer 4.2 is probably pretty tough today. 4.2 is about 10 years old, isn't it?