Lesson 11: Site Statistics
Assignment:
Visit the sites for WebSideStory, NetIQ, SiteTracker, Web-Stat, and Wusage. Choose the product you like best, and name three site statistics the tool helps you get.
WebSideStory
software: Hit Box Enterprise; you can use Excel to make your reports. There was a lot of information on the types of reports one can generate
can request a free HitBox ROI analysis
Price?
what exactly do they report?
I didn't find a nice chart or a price anywhere and frankly got tired of looking for them! I assumed this tracker is intended for much larger businesses than I am likely to work with and abandoned the site.
NetIQ
There's an easy-to-spot news link on the WebTrends info page: the only outsourced service to receive 5 stars from PC Magazine. (It's available as software OR an ASP hosted service).
Price?
free trial available
Has some sample reports but you need to do some digging to find them
I got impatient with this site too and stopped digging. I assume this one is for big businesses too.
SiteTracker
Their FREE counter tracks top referrers, most popular pages, browsers, screen resolution, etc. -- the "How it Works" section on the main page has a "learn more" link which brings up a table of the reports generated by each version (from free to $8.99 a month; the cheapest paid version is $2.99/month). They also warn that the free version puts an ad banner on your site
Web-Stat
$5/month service
provides a counter image (can be made invisible)
This site emphasized their search engine and referrer tracking
Stats measured: total traffic; returning traffic; full-time traffic; traffic since tracking began (or last reset); total traffic per month; returning traffic per month; first time traffic per month; traffic per day of the week (cumulative); traffic per hour of the day; cumulative referrers to your site; search engine keyword analysis; search engine and referrer tracker; entry pages into your site; country of origin; type of browser; type of operating system; color depth; screen size; etc.
Wusage
$25 single site license (sidebar on home page)
Examples of reports: all files served; page views; home page views; unique IP addresses; unique cookies used at least twice; unique visitors (best method)
Conclusion
I would try the free version of Site Tracker first (if the ad banner isn't too irritating!). I also liked the ease of finding information on their site; I didn't get bogged down like as I did on the NetIQ and WebSite Story sites.
If I wanted to pay $5/month I would go with Web-Stat, since it produces most of the reports that are $8.99/month on Site Tracker (browser, monitor resolution, colors, operating system, language, countries, etc.).
If I really wanted to spend the time to run my own reports, Wusage would be the least expensive way to go (and I should skim their online manual first to decide if it's worth the trouble, since there isn't a free trial version).