February 21, 2007
The site is up and running, but is anyone visiting? Find out with Aurora stats.
Click image to enlarge
Finally, you've launched your site and can begin to relax. But as soon as you do that the question begins to nag, is anyone visiting? If your site is on the main Case server you can find out using the statistics generated by the Aurora Project Administration System. Using this tool you can generate monthly reports and begin to establish an archive of statistical data for your site. The data generated includes the number of pages visited, distinct hosts served, browsers used, pages requested and various other information. As an example you can view the December 2006 stats for http://www.case.edu/ at http://www.case.edu/stats/2006/200612_access_log.html.
For information specific to your own Web account or for a particular directory, just follow the instructions below.
Running Aurora Statistics
To begin, go to the Aurora Project Administration System and login with the username and password for your Web account. This would be the same name and password you use when connecting to the server to upload files to your Web site.
Once you have logged in you will see a welcome screen. On the bottom there is a menu of available tools. Here you will choose "Generate Statistics."
On this page you can choose whether to run statistics for the entire site or for a specific directory. If you have a large site, or an account that is parent to multiple sites the directory option comes in handy. To choose a directory, click on the radio button that says "Show statistics for specified directory" then use the drop down menu to select the directory.
If you plan on reviewing this information in the future, and you will, you will want to save the report. Do this by typing a file name such as janstats2007.html in the box. I recommend naming them by date so that you can easily find them in the future. This will come in handy 6 months from now when your boss wants to know how site traffic has increased since January.
DO NOT CHECK the "Generate a raw log file" box unless you really want to generate an enormous file that you will then process with your own statistical software. If considering this it is highly recommended that you also read the documentation file.
After choosing the options above just click on the "Generate Statistics" button and wait for your report. This can take a minute or two, so just be patient and check your e-mail or something else while you wait. When the report is ready you will be given a link to your statistics.
What other options are available?
Those of you with accounts on the blog server are probably already familiar with the AW stats used for those accounts. If not, I recommend reading this documentation. Those hosting sites on other servers will need to run your own statistical software. A variety of programs are available. Another option to consider is Google Analytics. You can easily set up an account to use Google Analytics on your site, whether it is hosted on our main server or elsewhere.
Given the plethora of options, and the differing needs between departments, our Internal Communications group is working with the ITS Web team to explore other statistical tools that we may implement in the future. When such tools become available, I will announce that here as well.
Stumble It!
Posted by: Heidi Cool February 21, 2007 02:07 PM | Category: Heidi's Entries , How-to , Tips and Tricks
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Posted by: hac4 (Heidi Cool) February 21, 2007 02:07 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback
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