How to track where my visitors came from?

I'd like to track where my visitors came from to visit my site, so I can understand how to better optimize my site. For example what search engine, etc. I've heard of stuff like that, thought I can't seem to find out where I put the info and addresses. There should be something in javascript, or some software. Maybe even free software or trials.

I also am looking for something to check my history of visits, like if I got alot of visitors last month, I'd like to see where they mostly came from. Anyhow that continues to be my pursuit for now. Post any information on stuff like that. Thanks

 

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I use it religiously. I see where people come from, which keyword used, which page they visit, and lenght of time. Oh, and IP address, browser, os, etc.

 

Check with your web hosting company. You need to ask how to access your server logs. Also be sure to ask them if search engine keywords are being recorded. Some web hosts don't track that info unless clients ask for it (to save on disk space).

There are lots of server log analyzers you can use to condense the info into easy to read tables. I like the free demo version of FunnelWeb. But you can also just read the raw logs in Wordpad or Excel if you like.

 

wouldn't awstats provide what you are requesting for? most webosts provide awstats for free. a link to awstats should be on your webhost control cpanel (if it's available)...

 

Thanks, I'll see what I can do with that

 

YEAH, I heard about awstats, I got it just yesterday, but haven't yet opened it. lol So that'll track all that stuff? Where they came from, etc?

 

thanks , I'll look into awstat, and reply something tomorrow about it, thanks again

 

I wish I knew more about Perl. Awstats sounds nice, but its gonna take me some time to get through all the info I need to use it. Hoping to get this done in 1 day, but thats just a hope for now. haha

 

I think you've very much got the right approach isaiasd2003.
I use as a base the AW Stats that came free with the host a/c; Statcounter; and the stats on AdWords and AdSense. I hacked up a spreadsheet with selected items from each, and that gives me a fairly good understanding on what I need to focus on.
AW Stats I like because, e.g., it tells me that my site gets visited mainly mid-week, and mainly in the mornings; with little traffic at the weekend. I take that to mean that I have got to get off my butt and build another site around a theme that people are more likely to look for at the weeekends - number two priority.
The visit duration info was a considerable shock (very short!!), and told me that I needed to drastically cut my page load time, as the duration was shorter than the load time typical for my graphics and java larded-up pages - so I have to assume people were not patient and were clicking-off to another site. Learning about CSS is now my first priority (ow, my head hurts).
There is a lot of good stuff on AW Stats, though what is important to you from it will obviosly be different than what I find usefull. Another example: drilling down through the 404 error info. told my most 404s were from looking for robots.txt file which isn't there :eek, don't want to p*ss-off those Spiders! So that is my number three priority, .....etc., etc.
Statcounter is free (basic, last 100 visitors only version). Statcounter has different things than AW Stats, that are also usefull - like better info than AW Stats on average browser size used by visitors. Statcounter uses a cookie to track stuff, so your Uniques will be a bit different (lower) than what AW Stats shows you.
AdSense is nice because of the Channel info you can peer into. It at first amazed me that I get almost as many visit to my humble Blog than to my Index page; but it all makes kinda sense when, for all its faults compared to other Blogging systems, Blogger has CSS directed code that I haven't screwed up (yet?), so it loads pretty quick.

 

This is sweet! thanks tradefor! Hey, what sites are you working on?

 

Nice post. However, I am using the free Blogger/Blogspot.com and I believe AWSTATS uses as input a log file. The s/w I use do not give any log files. Is there a work-around as I find that the AWSTATS product has fairly rich features?

 

I am using counter on my blogs , it gives me all these details for free. You can also check it at http://www.statcounter.com/