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User Guide |
Table of Contents
When launching Advanced Web Stats for the first time, setting up a profile and customizing the application may seem a little complicated. That is why we have created this tutorial, an intuitive, concise but, nevertheless, comprehensive manual which is intended to ease you in, to help you quickly get started on monitoring your website. As an user, you will be given a wide range of possibilities, as Advanced Web Stats can easily be adjusted to your particular needs, without its precision and transparency being affected.
Web Log Analysis in plain English
Before getting started with Advanced Web Stats we would like to present some information about what web server logs are and how you can get old of them. In plain English.
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1. Visitors. First, visitors come to your website and look for the information/services/products you provide.
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2. Web server log files. As they browse your website, the web server where your website is hosted logs the interaction of the visitors with your website into log files stored on the web server. JavaScript tags, such as the aws.js tracking script add additional information into those logs.
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3. Get the log files. In order for you to get hold of the log files you can ask the company where your website is hosted to direct you to the right resources in getting them manually or via ask for the FTP configuration. If you configure Advanced Web Stats to get the logs via FTP, it will automatically download them on a location you specify from computer and then parse them.
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4. Get insight about your website. Once you have the log files you can start configuring your profile. When you finish configuring the profile for your website, Advanced Web Stats will parse the log files and display reports with information about your website. You can now start take advantage of the features Advanced Web Stats provides and get comprehensive information about your website.
1. Creating an Advanced Web Stats Profile
Creating a new Advanced Web Stats project involves having a clear image of its utility and functionality. Therefore, you first need to know the exact domain you are interested in. You are now at just a few clicks to see the results, so let's start.
To create your first profile, select [Create a new profile] from the [Profile Manager] menu and the bowser will open the page where you can create your new profile.
First you need to make the following settings:
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Profile name - Give your profile an easily identifiable name. The name you choose will appear when you view the reports for this profile.
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Website - Enter the domain name of the website that is analyzed.
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Country - Select your country.
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Default Pages - Enter the default pages of your website separated by comma.
![[Note]](../icons/note.png)
Note If you specify index.html,index2.html as the default pages the application will treat www.domain.com/, www.domain.com/index.html and www.domain.com/index2.html as the same page.
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Tracking method - Select the tracking method .
Note If you have installed on your website the AWS tracking script then select as tracking method "AWS Session ID" option for more accurate results. Otherwise select the IP + User-Agent option.
Click on the "Next" button to continue.
Now, you need to select a log source for your profile. You can add a new log source or select an existing one.
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Select "Add new log source" and continue by selecting "Add local log source".
Now select the format of the log, by default "Auto", the log source name and files location.
Note If you select to add the log from a remote location, you will need to configure FTP, HTTP or HTTPS settings. For each of them you need to add the server address, server port, user name and password. To finish, enter the log source name, the location of the file and its destination.
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Select "Add existing log source" and then choose a log from the available log sources drop down list.
Finally schedule the profile to run an update immediately, select to a frequency for future updates or select to update the project some other time.
By selecting the option for the profile to run automatically Advanced Web Stats will schedule a task and your log will be parsed. Following this operation you will be able to see the statistics reports for your website
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Depending on the size of your log and your system configuration, it can take from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours, for Advanced Web Stats to parse your log. |
2. Analyze your website statistics
Now that the scheduled task is finished, you can finally see and analyze the reports for your website. From the [Profile Manager] menu select your profile and your browser will open within the same window the "Reports" section for your profile.
You will see an overview of your visitors received from referrals, direct and from search engines. This report has configured a Segment that allow you to see the non-paid traffic.
Using the menu you can easily navigate through all reports and see comprehensive information about your visitors, your website traffic, content, technical reports, marketing reports or reports for your goals (goals that you can set from Profile Settings).
3. Set a scheduled task
The profile is configured and you have started to analyze the statistics of your website. Now you should schedule how often you want your logs to be parsed, because this will affect how often the information will be updated in your reports.
To do this you need to go to the [Scheduler] menu and click on the [Schedule a new task]. Now type an easily identifiable name for your task, select your profile, choose the frequency and select the date and time when the task should run for the first time.
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If you receive the following error: "Failed adding task : A task with the type 'Log Parser' already exists for the selected profile" you need to go to [Task Manager], move the mouse over the task with the same name as your profile and then click [Edit]. Now, set the frequency and the frequency and select the date and time when the task should run for the first time. Optional you can change it's name also. |