Web Statistics - What Software to Choose

Statistics are important information for your website. The more information you can get your hands on, the better possibilities you will have to improve your site.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of programs offering statistics about websites. Every company attempts to get a great ROI (Return on Investment) and web analytics software provides you with the necessary data to make important decisions regarding your online marketing efforts. No web statistics tool / program is 100 % accurate but some are better than others. The following programs are all great choices when it comes to choosing one with a small margin for error.

Analog - Popular Statistics Program

Analog is an open source program that analyses and measures the usage of your web server. It tells you everything from which pages that are the most popular to where your visitors are from and much more. It's one of the most popular web statistics programs in the world and it's absolutely free to download and install.

At the moment Analog is available in 33 different languages making it easy to use regardless of your origin. When analyzing lots of information it often takes longer than you would like but that's not going to be a problem with this software. Analog is extremely fast and it's uncompressing and processing like no other.

Analog works on every server and on just about any platform and yes… It's easy to install the software and to get started. You will have lots of use of this statistics program when developing your site.

AWStats - All the Necessary Functions

Just as the above, AWStats is an open source program which is free to download and install. It's for example a perfect tool when you want to analyze Internet services as web, streaming media, mail and FTP servers. One big strength with this program is that it's available in several different languages.

AWStats consists of all the necessary functions you might want from a web statistics tool. You get an easy overview of who it is that's visiting the pages, what search engines they're using to find the page, what pages that are the most popular, at what time of the day they're visiting the page and much more interesting statistics.

Proper web log analysis tool configuration and report interpretation requires a bit of technical and business knowledge. If you feel like you're not sitting on this knowledge there are forums where users are exchanging tips and tricks.

Webalizer - Fast Program

Webalizer is one of the most commonly used web statistics programs. Statistics that are commonly reported by Webalizer include hits, visits, referrers, the visitors' countries and the amount of data downloaded. You can get this program without having to spend a single penny.

This program works fast meaning you'll get the information you want without having to sit around and wait for it all day. One excellent thing with these statistics is that they can be presented in various time frames such as per day, hour, or month.

The Webalizer is truly a web statistics program for everyone around the globe since it's available in as many as 30 languages. The Webalizer is highly configurable by use of either command line options or a configuration file, allowing the program to be tailored to individual needs easily.

Urchin - Backed Up by Google

Unlike the other web statistics programs the new update of Urchin won't be free software. With this in mind remember that it's owned by Google meaning you can be sure of that you're getting a quality product.

If you run several websites you'll be able to analyze them all with the help of this program. Information that'll be accessible to you is for example where visitors come from, how your site is being used and what converts them. This is only the tip of the iceberg as you'll get access to much more than this.

With an easy interface to use there is really nothing that can go wrong in choosing this software. You're going to get exactly what they say they're offering.