Getting website stats

grizzly

Hi, I'm new to webdesign, so I'm looking for a way of getting statistics on a site for my client. They want details on traffic to judge effectiveness. I spoke to someone who told me I'd have to put code into to to get future stats, but I'd not be able to find out whats been happening for the last 6 months.

Is it possible to get past info. Should I contact the hosing company? Can Google provide stats on hits based on searches?

John_Mc

grizzly wrote: »

Hi, I'm new to webdesign, so I'm looking for a way of getting statistics on a site for my client. They want details on traffic to judge effectiveness. I spoke to someone who told me I'd have to put code into to to get future stats, but I'd not be able to find out whats been happening for the last 6 months.

Is it possible to get past info. Should I contact the hosing company? Can Google provide stats on hits based on searches?

Get yourself onto Google Analytics, it's terrific and free

Morlar

If this was not enabled by default by your hosting company you will not be able to get the data. Your hosting company may be able to help. For example blacknight hosting provide 'awstats' as part of their package however you need to enable it and set the logs retention etc. I am not sure if other companies may enable this by default and store them for a period.

Pablod

grizzly wrote: »

Hi, I'm new to webdesign, so I'm looking for a way of getting statistics on a site for my client. They want details on traffic to judge effectiveness. I spoke to someone who told me I'd have to put code into to to get future stats, but I'd not be able to find out whats been happening for the last 6 months.

Is it possible to get past info. Should I contact the hosing company? Can Google provide stats on hits based on searches?

Can't be 100% sure on this but i'd say your friend is right.
You might not be able to get stats on previous traffic.

But as for tracking future traffic sign up to Google Analytics, submit your site and take the piece of code they generate, this needs to be added to the code of your home page just before the end of the bodytag </body>

Hope this helps

grizzly

Thanks, but that will only help with future data, right?

ScumLord

If you got a domain name with hosting it would be very unusual that you didn't get a simple stats package included. Can you log into an admin area on the site something like www.sistename.com/cpanel?

Even so get google analytics to get all your future data there's nothing out there bar maybe woopra that compares.

HandWS LTD

webalizer stats in cpanel and google analytics are the 2 best form of stats for any website

tomED

HandWS LTD wrote: »

webalizer stats in cpanel and google analytics are the 2 best form of stats for any website

Webalizer has to be one of the worst stats packages available. It doesn't distinguish between robots and humans.

As everyone is saying, you should have some sort of stats packages with your hosting - but it's till worth installing Google Analytics too.

I use both Google Analytics and Statcounter.com
Statcounter only gives you five hundred log entries but it's useful for real-time stats.