How do you guys track visitors?

[bhutz]

Hi guys,
Long time since I have used the forum but I am curious to discover what sort of tools there are to track visitors coming to your website.

I used to use Awstats which used to work fine but now it won't let me update the stats for some reason although the log file is in exactly the same place :confused:

Anyway, I have been looking at the following statcounter (http://www.statcounter.com/) ,webstat (http://www.webstat.com/) and webalizer (http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/) although it looks slightly dated now.

I would love to hear some feedback on your views of these (or any other) tools for tracking visitor stats. Just like everyone else I would ideally like something that is free.

p.s. I am a PR4 now thanks to the support and knowledge from peeps at this forum, thanks! (Although Google SERPs have gone pear shaped :o ) It's all about being patient and getting those backlinks :D

[flawebworks]

Have you looked at the last date on the logfile and made sure it's up to date? That could be a reason why awstats won't update.

[bhutz]

Have you looked at the last date on the logfile and made sure it's up to date? That could be a reason why awstats won't update.
Thanks for the suggestion, the last line is definitely valid
207.46.98.88 - - [10/Jan/2005:15:03:20 +0000] "GET /forum/showthread.php?t=856 HTTP/1.0" 200 26651 "-" "msnbot/0.3 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"
Although the thing that worries me is that the log file was 60MB and that is only for the period between 1st and now :confused: But I agreee, it must be something wrong with the log file because when I reinstalled it, things worked for a while before going wrong again

[ManageMyServices]

If you ever have the chance get Urchin stats, it's a great package!

[bloodwrath]

i track em with awstats and urchin stats via my hosting package..

[bloodwrath]

this older post may help
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=4027

[bhutz]

Cheers bloodwrath, very helpful post :)

[Volknet]

I use a program called BBclone. Its by far the best stats program i've ever seen. :) And its free!

[bhutz]

Damn that looks nice, gonna try and install that right away, thanks so much for that Volknet

[obenix]

I use both awstats and www.reinvigorate.net

[spdude]

I use statcounter. IMO it's pretty thorough and even tells you the navigation paths of your visitors. You can watch them in real time, if that is any use to you. If you have significant traffic upgrading the log-size (for ten bucks a month) to 1,000 usually is enough to get detailed reports.

The only thing which really bugs me about them is how they take PR from your site using invisible links, since you need to add their code to every page. The links are invisible but they do transfer pagerank. Explains why they are PR9 (use to be PR10).

If you adopt the position that PR leaks, then this can be a concern for someone who has a high PR6 site. Site-wide links do have an opportunity cost IMO.