I would like to start tracking the number of hits my website is
getting and finding out where they are coming from, if possible (i.e.
what pages they are linking from, etc.)--what is the best way to do
this?  I am a Frontpage designer with average knowledge and my site is
hosted by PacBell.  They do track usage on my site, but when I asked
them if I could tell the number of hits from their tracking, the
answer was:
The average successful requests per day is the number of files loaded
onto the internet each day.  The actual number of unique hits would
only
be calculated by a hit counter.  The hits log that we generate, again,
is the number of files loaded onto the internet for a certain period.
So, I need to install a hit counter. BUT I don't want to install the
standard hit counter in Frontpage as it is visible to my customers and
you can't install it "behind the scenes" (to my knowledge).  I was
using a site that tracked my hits for free, but it has since closed
down.  Ideas?  THANKS!

Hello fogcity,

It does appear that you can add a hidden counter to FrontPage if you
are using 2000 or 2002. I do not know that this would provide you with
the information you want though:

“HowTo add a hidden hit counter in FrontPage 2000 or 2002”
http://www.howtouniverse.com/CI/addhiddncntrFP2k.html

Here is a simpler, less detailed walkthrough: 
“How to Create a Hidden Hit Counter in FrontPage”
http://www.webworksite.com/hitcounter.htm

You mention that you would like information on who your visitors are,
where they come from, what pages they are linking from. The following
links all have at minimum the features you requested, and some will
also give you features such as telling you what browsers your visitors
are using etc. Also I focused on finding programs that are server side
by the organization offering the service so that you do not have to
install software on your own server.

My gut feeling would be to go with the first one, as they appear to
stand out – you get customer support and a great package. The choice
is of course up to you, and if you find that none of these meet your
needs, please let me know and I will continue searching for you.

The-Counter.net
URL: http://www.the-counter.net/packages.html
Summary: For $19.95 you can get detailed information for one year (up
to 30,000 page views per month). 60 day money back guarantee,
excellent tech support and best of all you get detailed graphs. Check
out some of them at the bottom of this page:
http://www.the-counter.net/index.html

SykesDevelopment
BASE URL: http://www.sykesdevelopment.com/products/webstats/about/
SUMMARY: On the above link there is a “view demo” button. After
clicking it, I was greeted with a recording of my IP address, my ISP,
the exact URL I came from, My interner browser version and operating
system, my resolution and my colour depth. Also the exact time I
visited, the number of times I refreshed the page and the amount of
time I spent on the page!!! Best of all this service is 100% FREE!!!!
(not sure if this one is invisible though)

Stats4You.com
BASE URL: http://www.stats4you.com 
INFO URL: http://www.stats4you.com/products.asp
SUMMARY: There is no doubt that this is a great service. There is a
basic version ($59.95 a year) that gives you statistics for five of
your pages and a Pro version that has even more features. This is a
more expensive service, but it might be worth it for you.

The Red Toolbox Counter:
URL: http://www.hitcounter.theredtoolbox.com/tier10.cgi
SUMMARY: Not sure if I was as impressed with this one, but they do
come with a 30 day free trial. Cost is monthly $14.99 with a one time
set up fee of $14.99. See URL above for more information. They also
apparently submit your website to numerous search engines if you buy
this service. 20,000 page views per month.

I have selected the above four out of numerous ones that I went
through. If you want me to focus on free ones (most are just counters
though and not reporters and are not invisible) or have a specific
price range, I will be happy to do further research for you.

All the best,

tisme-ga


Search Strategy:

hidden counters
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=hidden+counters

visitor information website counter
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=visitor+information+website+counter

visitor information website counter
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=visitor+information+website+counter

---

Request for Answer Clarification by fogcity-ga on 20 Jan 2003 13:08 PST

Hello, and thanks for the indepth answer!  I have to say, you guys are
the best!!!!  I'll check out those sites and see how they work, and
I'm sure that will answer my question.  I think that Sycophant was
taking my question to the next level, which I'm sure I would have come
to next--how do I analyze the server logs and what useful statistics
can I generate from them (i.e. - where the hits came from, what pages
they go to, etc.?)  I would be interested in doing this, and I do get
a log with raw server logs in it, but have how to analyze them.  If
you have any advice, please let me know, and I'll check the link as
well.

---

Clarification of Answer by tisme-ga on 20 Jan 2003 18:17 PST

Hello fogcity,

I am glad that the answer provided met your needs. I have done some
additional research for you as requested.

The link provided by sycophant has several Log Analyzers:
http://www.tucows.com/log95.html

I used to find some analyzers and give you examples or what the
results look like and the approx. cost.

123 LogAnalyzer
http://www.123loganalyzer.com/
Sample Report: http://www.123loganalyzer.com/sample/
Info: The price is $129.95 but you have up to 60 days to evaluate and
get an unconditional refund if you wish to return the software. 
http://www.123loganalyzer.com/download.htm

Mach5 Enterprises - M5 Analyzer
http://www.mach5.com/products/analyzer/index.php
Sample Report: http://www.mach5.com/products/analyzer/report/index.html
Info: Two versions, regular for $99.95 and Gold for $199.95. 

Sawmille for Individuals
http://www.sawmill.net/individual.html#01
Sample Report: http://www.sawmill.net/samples.html
Info: Pricing for an individual (not an organization) is $99. See
here: http://www.sawmill.net/cgi-bin/sawmilldocs?ho+faq-pricing

SurfStats Log Analyzer
http://www.surfstats.com/
Sample Report: http://www.surfstats.com/samples/
Info: This is my favorite one because the information is displayed
first as a graphic and then text at the bottom in a nice easy to
navigate format. Price is $95

Web Log Expert
http://www.weblogexpert.com/
Info: Cost is $75. I was unable to connect to this website but there
is a review here: http://www.tucows.com/preview/250030.html Perhaps
you will be able to connect, it is probably just my connection.

This page has some more log analysis tools and short reviews of them.
In some cases you can see a sample of what the output looks like:
http://www.counterguide.com/logs.html

I hope that this is the type of clarification you were expecting. 

All the best,

tisme-ga

For what it's worth, the only way to get genuinely accurate statistics
about your website's usage is to examine the actual server logs. Hit
counters, even the more advanced ones, are not able to collect all the
information that a log analysis progam can generate from server logs.

Contact your hosting provider to see if they can provide you with raw
server logs for you site, and if they can, you can analyise them
yourself with a number of different tools.

You can find a number of these tools in the Tucows archive:
http://www.tucows.com/log95.html

Hello sycophant,

Your comment was interesting to me. I came across various log
analyzers, but it appears that the person wanted a hit counter.

I am curious though as to why hit counters are not able to collect all
the information that a log analysis program can? It sure does appear
from the demos above that they did an excellent job of identifying me,
my referring link and other info. Basically when the code is activated
on the page, all the information goes to the service's server...
right? Under certain conditions such as certain images not loading, or
the page not fully loading I can understand it...

In any case, I hope the answer is what fogcity was looking for.

tisme-ga

Alrighty, here's the lowdown on web stats, and how they work... 

We must begin with how a webpage get's loaded... Let's say for
example, I find a link on www.neatstuffonthenet.com to
www.coolthingsonline.com/neato.html -- When I click on that link my
browser opens a connection to the coolthingsonline server and asks for
neato.html, it also sends a little information back to the server
about itself, namely what browser it is and what OS it is on and more
interestingly, where it was referred from, in this case
neatstuffonthenet.com.

Once my browser has been given the contents of neato.html, it then
needs to collect the other elements of the page. For example the
images, it repeats the process, requesting each image from the server,
and this time providing neato.html as the referrer.

Now, if my page, neato.html featured 11 images and one sound file,
then to collect all those elements, including the page itself, my
browser would have to make 13 requests to the server. Here is were web
stat terminology starts to get confusing... Every request to a server
is counted as a 'hit', so while only one page was loaded, that was 13
hits. So we have another term, 'pageview', this can generally be
calculated by looking at the number of hits on non-image files, or on
files we know to be page content (.html .htm .php .asp .cfm etc.)

The next useful metric is 'user sessions' - by issolating all
connections from a specific IP address we can generally count the
number of actual people that looked at the site, although with web
proxies and dynamic IPs it can become a little trickier.

Beyond that there are also server response. For example, even failed
attempts to load a page are recorded in the logs, with all the same
information that a correct response stores. This means you can see if
a lot of users are getting 404 errors when trying to access something,
and see where that link is coming from.

Now, with third-party hit counters, the limitations lie in the fact
they have to interpret the information from a small sample. Typically
a hit counter works by including an image within a page (this can be a
visible counter, or a 1 pixel image that is invisible to the user).

The image is in fact a server-side program that, when requested, looks
at the information the browser provided, and generates statistics
based on that. By looking at the referrer (which will be the page
within your site that the image was included in) it can determine
which page was loaded. However, as this type of counter can only
really count itself, and only when it's loaded - it can't give you
reliable details of page failures (such as 404 errors) or individual
file accesses (such as other people linking to your images).

While a counter like this can provide a lot of information, it is by
no means definitive. The server log, on the other hand, is taking it
'straight from the horse's mouth.'

I hope this makes at least some sense.

Hello sycophant,

Thanks for taking the time to write the comment. I completely understand now.

tisme-ga