Web log analysis software (also called a web log analyzer) is a kind of
web analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for business and market research a ...
software that parses a
server log file from a
web server
A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initi ...
, and based on the values contained in the log file, derives indicators about when, how, and by whom a web server is visited. Reports are usually generated immediately, but data extracted from the log files can alternatively be stored in a database, allowing various reports to be generated on demand.
Features supported by log analysis packages may include "hit filters", which use pattern matching to examine selected log data.
Common indicators
* Number of visits and number of
unique visitors
* Visit duration and last visits
* Authenticated users, and last authenticated visits
* Days of week and rush hours
* Domains/countries of host's visitors.
* Hosts list
* Number of page views
* Most viewed, entry, and exit pages
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File types
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OS used
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Browsers used
*
Robots "\n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...
used
*
HTTP referrer
*
Search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
s, key phrases and keywords used to find the analyzed web site
*
HTTP errors
* Some of the log analyzers also report on who is on the site, conversion tracking, visit time and page navigation.
See also
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List of web analytics software
This is a list of web analytics software used to collect and display data about visiting website users.
Self-hosted software Free / Open source (FLOSS)
This is a comparison table of web analytics software released under a free software license. ...
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Web Log Analysis Software