RE: FN-FORUM: REQ: Web Log Analysis software

date posted 22nd April 2008 22:55

Mark Pawelek wrote:
> Free or cheap Web Log Analyser required. Ideally simple to use=20
> (for non-programmer). Not something which requires installation=20
> on a web-site but something one can feed the Server Web Logs to=20
> which will make sense of them. It must run on Windows.=20

Sam M wrote:
> Defo SmarterStats, There is a free 1 site version from=20
> www.smartertools.com.

A key limitation we've found with SmarterStats v3 (latest version I =
believe)
is that it is not possible to exclude search engines from results (e.g.,
from unique visitor counts).

I've queried this on the SmarterTools forum and they do not appear to =
have a
fix, other than to look at the "top spiders" screen and manually deduct
figures. Why, oh why, they don't provide the option to do this
automatically, I have not idea!

Here's my post on the SmarterTools forum from Jan 06:
http://www.smartertools.com/forums/p/4389/5532.aspx#5532

SmarterTools replied with: "Regarding spiders, it's our goal to add =
spider
filtering to SmarterStats in the next major release. No release date =
has
been set for it yet.". Another user commented: "I was surprised when I =
read
this. Even the most basic stats program, Analog, allows you to easily
exclude spiders from its reports."

Great looking tool, plenty of features (the automatic e-mail reports are
great for clients), but this is a fundamental flaw and SmarterTools =
appear
to be in no hurry to fix it.

Cheers, Ben

--
Ben Johnson, Neogic Web Solutions
// design . development . managed hosting

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