Web Tracking

Web tracking technologies are used to collect, store and

connect user web browsing behaviour records.

The information gained thereby is of interest to various

parties.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 Major
Objectives
• Advertisement
• Advertisement companies actively collect information about
users and accumulate it in user profiles. These profiles are then
used to tailor individualized advertisements.

• Law enforcement
• Law enforcement and intelligence agencies may use web tracking
technologies to spy on individuals and to solve crimes.

• Usability tests
• By observing the steps an individual performs while trying to
solve a certain task on a web page, usability problems can be
discovered and fixed.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 Objectives
(continued)
• Web analytics
• focuses less on the individual user, but more on the
performance of a web site as a whole.
• In the e-commerce business, shop operators use
web analytics to maximize their revenue.
• for example
• by evaluating which pages generate most income
• which banner ads account for most traffic
• during which steps of the order process customers are lost.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 TOO
1.  AWStats
LS
2. eLogic
3. Google Analytics
4. ShinyStat
5. SiteMeter
6. Stat Counter
7. W3Counter
8. W3perl
9. Webalizer
10. Woopra

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 TOO
•  AWStats comes
LS
pre-installed by many web hosting
companies. Additionally, if you’re setting up your own
servers, you can download it for your personal use.
AWStats goes deeper into the referring sites’ information
than most analytics packages, and is a perfect tool for
monitoring whether someone is hotlinking files from your
site. Besides being a great detective tool for bandwidth
thieves, it offers all of the usual useful tools that you might
expect from a statistics package.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 TOO
LS
•  eLogic provides three levels of service based on your exact needs. If you
need to track only one or two pages, they offer a stat counter that just
offers you the most basic of reports. Their Webstats BASIC package is also
free, but gives you more the usual tools you expect like referring sites, a
history, demographics, and more. Finally if you’re a business or a larger
site, you may sign up for their subscription program, Webstats PRO, that
will give you a full history and more extensive tools.
• Google Analytics  is arguably the most popular analytics package available
for individual site owners. Google Analytics (or plain old “GA”) allows you
to dig down deep into your stats to see breakdowns of individual regions,
states/provinces, cities and numerous other items to better identify your
site visitors. The wealth of data available is admirably balanced by a well-
executed user interface, but it can still be overwhelming. The package
integrates with AdWords and has ecommerce-specific tools to track sales.

• 

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 TOO
LS
•  ShinyStat  was initially designed to monitor visits to Italian
web sites. Now it is available to sites all over the world, and
offers software packages for the individual user, the
professional user who needs to track marketing, and a
business owner who needs to monitor sales and ROI. There is
also a level of service for ISPs to install and include with their
hosting accounts.

• SiteMeter has a free version for smaller bloggers with up to

100,000 monthly visitors that offers all of the usual tools a
webmaster can expect such as tracking referrals, visit
durations and so on. If you are launching a larger site and
need more tools, there is a paid version based on your volume
of visitors.
UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com
 TOO
LS
•  StatCounter might have a rather plain interface, but it deftly handles
multi-author blogs, allowing you to easily assign unique codes to
each author. While it is free and does work, you have to click on a
link to see each analytic result on a separate page. Despite its
unpolished looks, the site does offer you clearly readable stats on
things such as keywords, traffic sources, and other useful
information.

• W3Counter comes in a free and paid version. With a free W3Counter

account, you can track up to 5,000 page views a day across 10
websites and see all of the usual stats. In addition, you get a bonus
that you can share your stats with anyone you like via widgets for
your blog or an API that lets you build new tools. For sites with
higher traffic, you can go for the Pro account that allows you to track
up to 1 million views a month.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 TOO
•  W3Perl differs from
LS
other analytics packages in that it
doesn’t just measure web traffic, but also can parse the log
files of email to measure just about anything you choose. You
can set up the administration interface for web access and
gain real-time stats from there.

• Webalizer is written in C, which means that it is extremely

fast and portable, and is a favorite choice of people who host
their own servers. Many web hosts have this analytics
package pre-installed for your use inside of their control
panel. Webalizer doesn’t allow you to dive terribly in-depth
into your data like some other packages, but it provides an
excellent overview.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 TOO
LS
•  Woopra is currently in a closed beta test, but it offers you a
wealth of data for those who can get in. Real-time data are
streamed from your site that appear on a map letting you
graphically see where readers are coming from, what
keywords brought them in, and referring sites. Woopra offers
you a unique ability to open up a chat window with visitors
of your choice as they browse your site. An unusual feature
of this service is that the data is presented to you in a
desktop application. WordPress users can install a plugin that
lets them see this data in the dashboard of their blog.

UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com

 THANK YOU

11
UNIT-III WEB User Tracking www.sitepoint.com