web logs/analyzers - tools to determine click pattern?

[myblueshoes]

Does anyone know a good tool to determine click pattern on a site?

I think they may be refferred to as web analyzers, web logs or log files?

Please clue me in!

:huh:

[MediaHound]

[Mod Edit - Please do not advertise your sites in general threads]

[cwsteam.com]

try clicktrack!!

[myblueshoes]

Got it bookmarked. Thanks!

[Caveman]

www.swiftstats.com is a good one

[MediaHound]

[Mod Edit - Please do not advertise your sites in general threads]

[cwsteam.com]

I like www.swiftstats.com, thanks for the link.

[TLDN]

WebSideStory.com

[MediaHound]

You have to be kidding me.
Those sites are free resources.
Thats not advertising! And so you know, LTMaster is a family member of mine. He wouldn't even be a member here if it weren't for me. Larry was asking where he can get a stats service, I have them, so I pointed him to the links. You have to be kidding when you call that advertising. So you mean to tell me, I can only point to links that I don't own? I'd like a detailed explanition of how you mean to say I can't pass a link to somebody if I own the site, and that I can only point to sites I don't operate.
That's total BS, get off your high horse man.
Advertising! Whatever...

[Mr Webname]

You have to be kidding me.
Those sites are free resources.
Thats not advertising! And so you know, LTMaster is a family member of mine. He wouldn't even be a member here if it weren't for me. Larry was asking where he can get a stats service, I have them, so I pointed him to the links. You have to be kidding when you call that advertising. So you mean to tell me, I can only point to links that I don't own? I'd like a detailed explanition of how you mean to say I can't pass a link to somebody if I own the site, and that I can only point to sites I don't operate.
That's total BS, get off your high horse man.
Advertising! Whatever...

This forum has always had a policy of not allowing self-promotion in threads outside of the Advertising Forum - if you own the sites that you refer others to then you are promoting your own sites - self-promotion, advertising.
If LTMaster is a family member, why not tell him directly about your sites?
Why was it necessary to post about them in the thread?
I am not on a high or low horse I am here to Moderate the forum and that is what I am doing in response to a complaint received from another member.

[GiantDomains]

So you mean to tell me, I can only point to links that I don't own?

Correct. However, you can PM the member and that is considered help. If we allowed everyone to post their own links it would be an endless thread of self-promotion.

If you reply to the thread you may just want to say "PM sent regarding the above".

Hope that helps.

[MediaHound]

I hear you guys. Fair enough.
But I still don't get it through my thick skull.
He wants stats, and posts asking where to get the service.
I know a good, popular, stats service. (2 actually - each a tad bit different)
I send him a link (or 2).
I get crap because I own them. I can only post links to sites I can't even speak for?
Something is wrong with this picure.

I see all these links to stats sites people posted here. Mine are better (arguably), why should I be muffled from pointing them out just becasue I happen to be a member of the forum, and also operate my own sites. We're not talking about where he should buy life insurance, we're talking about free webstats services.

[Nexus]

So... just to be clear, because exclusions of "self-promotion" aren't as absolute on other forums... Members can in NO WAY refer to a website or product they own or run, even when directly answering a members question (outside of the promotional forums)? Basically, "wait for someone else to recommend your website if it happens at all". I want to check because if I had had a product ready for a recent forum question, I would have posted my offering along with a bevvy of other recommendations I made in my post.

Had I done so, I should have expected my post to be editted?

Thanks,
~ Nexus

[MediaHound]

exactly, Nexus.
They would have looked up the whois (or asked you via PM, as in my case) on all the links in your posts and have seen if you were tied to anything in your so called promotion. And if you were the all-deserving developer, your post would have been deleted. Ass backwards moderation, anti-progressive.

[Nexus]

To be honest, I don't really have a problem with it, just so long as I know going into it.

If someone is going to slap my hand, I want to know if there's a chance I'm doing something wrong before hand. I've experience what felt like arbitrary moderation in the past, and I want to avoid feeling that way. "I'm sorry you feel wronged", type statements are a pet peeve on mine.

~ Nexus

[Anthony Ng]

Don't meant to be rude (esp. when I know for a long while that Nexus has been a nice and decent guy), but I'm really surprised to read about some of the arguments in this thread. It's actually a rule of thumbs on MOST established and well managed forums that you are not allowed to mention YOUR OWN products or services in non-advertising sections. It's not that hard to understand the rationale behind it, isn't it?

[Nexus]

Thanks for the sentence Giant Domains. I'll use that in the future. NameSlave, I don't believe in holding people responsible for "rules of thumb". Hopefully I'm not being argumentative by pointing out the following:

The current DNForum rules state two things:

6. Spammers will receive a swift kick in the ass, as well as a lengthy ban.

9. Stay focused on the topic under discussion.
The forum is not a place for advertising your businesses or services everywhere.

Reading these, I would not have immediately thought including a LINK to my own offering as an answer to someone's question, would IN AND OF ITSELF be wrong. If it was only a solititation for business, I get it... if instead it was "PRODUCT B - from blah blah", and I said didn't say more than necessary to show it off... I'd think it was fine. BUT, I see now that here it isn't. All set.

Here are rules as defined on another forum (including their emphasis formatting):

You may directly/indirectly link to or reference your own site(s) or sites you have an economic/controlling/employed interest in only in the "Promotions and Advertising" section of the site or in your signature - this is irrespective of whether they are commercial or not. The single exception we allow is to answer specific questions about the site(s) asked by members who are doing so of their own volition, and then we only allow as much as is required to answer the question and not to promote additional products/services. Opening posts in threads should always contain more than just a link to an external website. Affiliate links may only be posted in the "Promotions and Advertising" Section - this includes not posting them in signatures - and it should be made clear where a post is an affiliate link. An "affiliate link" is a link to a site not operated by the poster for which the poster receives incentive (financial or otherwise) from traffic or referral purchases. Adult sites/names may not be listed in the "Promotions and Advertising" section.

I come out of that being a lot clearer on the topic than I do reading the DNForum "rules" section. But, again... reading this thread, I'm now clearer. I just feel bad for anyone like Exclusive member MediaHound, who didn't see this thread, and has to suffer the indignity, because they don't know anything about a "rule of thumb" buried in another post somewhere.

~ Nexus

[Anthony Ng]

Yeah, I agree that there is room for improvement in stating more clearly the "rules" esp. for newbies (as we do have a lot here, and which is good). I may have also overlooked the fact that DNForum could well be the very first forum of many of our members. But when we get around on the Internet, some common sense and basic forum etiquette do apply universally. On another forum that I also help moderate, there's a line in the "guidelines" that I like most:

Participants should use common sense. We don't have a written policy for everything.

[Nexus]

Common sense is what keeps people out of getting a Darwin Award. I strongly disagree that "common sense" applies in this situation.

If someone tells me "Under NO circumstances are members to post links to their own websites, even in answer to another member's question. Even if well-intentioned, this is a strict rule with no exceptions." I think that is a RULE to be plainly stated (for example, as I've written it), and not under the umbrella called "common sense", at all. General "nettiquette" maybe, but important not to be automatically expected.

But, that's all I'll say about that. I'm suspected this is one of those dnForum moderation issues where I may not get any form of satisfaction in being understood, other than to manufacture it for myself.

Does anyone know a good tool to determine click pattern on a site?
I think they may be refferred to as web analyzers, web logs or log files?
Please clue me in!
:huh:

LTMaster... lest anyone not mention, the absolute reigning king of web traffic analysis is WebTrends. You can either get a version that runs constantly on your website... many web hosts offer this, or you can get an "offline" version (the original) that will read through your log files, and generate a comprehensive report. Unfortunately, this company has gone "zen" with this, so this is a very expensive product (whichever version you get).

WebTrends Price: SmallBiz: $495 / Pro: $3,495 / Enterprise: $9,995
http://www.webtrends.com/

A web-based service I've been looking at lately is HitsLink. They have demos on their website that are pretty impressive.

HitsLink - online demo Price: As low as $9.95 per month
http://www.hitslink.com/

I'm VERY leery about a number of other "hit tracking" services, often offered for free. In the past, they've been known to suddenly dissappear when incountering "bandwidth" problems inherent in offering FREE services, with "not-so-free" costs to themselves. That said, HitsLink charges.

In my opinion, the reigning KING of FREE web traffic programs is AWStats. This is software you install on your own web server, so it doesn't cost the makers anything to run.

AWStats - online demo Price: FREE!
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/

It is OPENSOURCE and free. However, depending on your degree of technical expertise, it may require more to set-up than you're able to do yourself. But, won't cost you anything to give it a try!

Best Regards,
~ Nexus

[Mr Webname]

As GD has already said above, if you want to tell someone about YOUR site in answer to a post question - do so in a PM, NOT in the thread. This is nothing new and nobody is picking on anybody - at this forum, it has alaways been the policy.
Sometimes such links are spotted my Mods and sometimes they are spotted by members who complain when they see someone else doing something that they know they are not permitted to do.