Web log A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

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 visitor Website popularity is commonly determined using the number of unique users, and the metric is often quoted to potential advertisers or investors. A website's number of unique users is usually measured over a standard period of time, typically a m ...

s * 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 * File types * OS used *

Browsers Browse, browser or browsing may refer to: Programs *Web browser, a program used to access the World Wide Web *Code browser, a program for navigating source code *File browser or file manager, a program used to manage files and related objects *Ha ...

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 In HTTP, "" (a misspelling of Referrer) is an optional HTTP header field that identifies the address of the web page (i.e., the URI or IRI), from which the resource has been requested. By checking the referrer, the server providing the new web p ...

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.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Web Log Analysis Software

Common indicators

See also

External links