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‘Analog’ gives U of S web managers valuable campus website statistics
Last month, this column provided tips for effective website management. One of these tips indicated that web managers should monitor the effectiveness of their pages through ongoing analysis of qualitative data (e.g. e-mail queries, survey data, feedback forms, etc.) and quantitative data (e.g. site statistics, usage trends, search term logs, etc.).
Site statistics are an excellent source of quantitative information. Archived data can aid web managers in identifying usage trends and determining strengths and weaknesses of websites.
The Analog program was designed specifically for web developers at the University of Saskatchewan. Analog examines raw log files, generated by campus web servers, and provides a summary of meaningful statistics through regular reports.
An archive of Analog reports for U of S sites is located at
http://www.usask.ca/help/usage_stats.html. On the main WWW server, custom analog reports can be generated to provide website information for specific departments or units.
An Analog report consists of the following sections:
- The Heading includes the name of the web server, the time of report generation, the time period of data analysis, and a menu of site reports (listed below).
- The General Summary provides the number of successful, failed, and redirected requests, the number of served hosts, and the amount of transferred data. This report provides general information regarding site visitation, and is useful for identifying usage trends.
- The Hourly Summary and Daily Summary break down the number of site requests by hour and day, and is useful for determining peak usage periods.
- The Monthly Report breaks down the number of site requests by month and year, and is useful for identifying long-term usage trends.
- The Directory Report and Request Report list the top directory and file requests, and provide an indication of the most popular areas of your site.
- The Domain Report and Organization Report identify the IP numbers of computers accessing the site, and translates this information into meaningful data. These reports provide general information about web visitors (e.g. country of origin or nature of website), as well as more detailed information regarding the organization (e.g. company or unit name).
- The Host Report breaks down the number of site requests by individual computers, and can help determine the number of people visiting your site. This estimate can be affected by multiple users of one computer (e.g. public terminals in libraries or computer labs), multiple users of a proxy server, or execution of a web spider.
- The Referrer Report and Referring Site Report list internal and/or external web pages and sites that provide links to your site. These reports are useful for identifying the source of visitor "referrals" - often a result of links provided by affiliated organizations and search engines.
- The Search Query Report lists the most popular query strings used to access the site, and provides a good indication of the information needs of web visitors.
- The File Type Report and File Size Report provide information about the top file types. These reports are useful for monitoring the efficiency of bandwidth usage and for identifying solutions to optimize download time.
- The Browser Summary and Browser Report list the top browsers and versions of browsers, and provide detailed information regarding subversions, operating systems, and language versions. This information can help web managers ensure their sites are viewable in all browsers, regardless of brand or version. The reports also identify the major search engines that have accessed the site.
- The Operating System Report lists the operating systems used by web browsers visiting your site, and provides information about the computers used by web visitors.
- The Redirection Report provides the top file requests that are redirected by the server. Redirects occur in cases where a file is not found, a file requires an access password, or a file has changed location. This report is useful in the event your web address changes, as requests can be forwarded automatically to the new address.
- The Status Code Report lists standardized codes that are returned to web browsers, and can provide useful information regarding the ongoing operation of a site. For example, multiple 401 or 403 codes may signify a breach of security, and multiple 404 codes can indicate the absence of files.
- The Failure Report and Failed Referrer Report list the top requests that could not be completed due to errors. The reports are useful for identifying pages that do not exist within your site, and for identifying referrers that provide invalid links to your site.
For further information, check out the on-line course entitled "Interpreting Analog Reports" at
www.usask.ca/dcs/courses/cai/analog/
. The course, developed by Kevin Lowey, provides detailed information on web server logs and the Analog analysis program, and offers a list of additional resources for web managers.
On Campus News is published by the Office of
Communications, University of Saskatchewan.
For further information,
visit the web site or contact communications@usask.ca
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