Practical Web Traffic Analysis: Standards, Privacy, Techniques, and Results

This book fills a niche aimed squarely at small site operators who want to peek under the hood and fully understand how to measure their site's traffic. The best way to describe what's in this book is to quote from the back cover, "What you know: enough to have created a web site ... how to get server log files". "What you'll learn" - Techniques for gathering data on users- Standards and guidelines for interpreting your data- How other sites ensure that they respect user privacy- Insight into how other sites use web traffic analysisThe book delivers on the above promises by showing you how to select the best approach that meets your requirement, and use that approach. The technical approaches include log file analysis, page tagging, and cookies. The latter is a definite privacy issue, so the chapter on privacy is important even if you're running a small home page.I co-manage a few web sites with a colleague, one of which is a small commercial site called processdox (ASIN B0001F96ZO). For statistics we use a service called extremetracking (ASIN B00006E2FS), and for the most part it is good enough. However, since I do have access to server logs, and can tag every page on the site, this book gave me options to go beyond the available tools. While page tagging is more effective, I chose to go with log analysis since the time and effort of anything more than that was not worth it. If I were operating a high volume commercial site with competitors I would have either used page tagging, or even outsourced this function to a service provider. Before reading this book I was not aware of the many options, and why one was better than another in a given situation. Therein lies the value of this book to a small site operator.To get the most from this book you do need to be technically inclined because some of the chapters are about coding your own solution. Even those chapters, though, were so clearly explained that an inexperienced site operator will have no problem understanding all of the details.Be aware that much of the technical material in this book does not scale up to larger commercial sites. While the case studies and privacy information will be useful to anyone running any size site, the traffic analysis techniques are best in a small site setting. If that is where you are, then this is a perfect book because it will not sidetrack you with information that a small site operator doesn't need. If you are looking for a book that addresses this subject from a larger business viewpoint I suggest "Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success" (ISBN 0471220728).

Like the book's description says it's for web professionals that want to understand web traffic. The book does an outstanding job living up to that description. It goes deep into the pro's and con's of common methods of log analysis, cookie management and page tags, and shows how to develop tools and techniques to analyze information from these sources.What it does not do is cover search engines or marketing analytics. Nothing about this book's description mentions those, and anyone who confuses search engine optimization with serverside traffic analysis does not understand web analysis. Search engine optimization is all about using key words in sites and bidding for key words with search engine providers and is a strategy. Web traffic analysis is how you go about proving that your search engine optimization stratgey works as planned. The book does cover this. On page 17 is a great explanation of how to use the HTTP request called cs(referer) to get search engine information that includes where the request came from and the query. The same goes for marketing analytics. Web traffic analysis is an enabler, but most of the tools and techniques for true analytics are either third party software or services. This should set your expectations about what this book is and isn't.For the web professional who is seeking an understanding of web traffic and the way to use available tools to make intelligent assumptions about visitors and their behavior this book will be greatly helpful. The way the book discusses common problems like cache, proxy servers, HTTP shortcomings, and what can and cannot be gleaned from logs and other methods is excellent information.Best practices using a few large sites helps to understand traffic analysis, how the big guys handle privacy and track users. All in all this is an outstanding book that I learned a lot from. Highly recommended.

This book is one of the most clearly written and objective resources to small to medium business site managers and marketing staff that I've read. It does not bog the reader down in esoteric approaches to web analytics - those expensive solutions used by the Fortune 1000 - nor does it approach the subject from a purely technical perspective. Also, don't expect serach engine strategies, data mining or other topics - they are beyond the scope of this book.Among the areas in the book I especially liked are:- No bias towards any vendor solution. The chapter on developing a tool for the Microsoft IIS environment was balanced by another chapter that approached tool development for Apache. Given the large number of IIS and Apache sites, the audience for this book is wide in scope.- Clear and well throughout strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to web analytics, which will allow the reader to decide the best approach given business objectives. True, log analysis is hit or miss, but it does yield 'good enough' information for many small-to-medium businesses, and certainly for web masters/mistresses whose web site is an avocation instead of a business. The tagging approach, also discussed in detail and the most effective for in-depth analytics, is covered in the same strength/weakness framework. - Code for all examples and solutions are thoroughly dissected, and you can also download them from the publisher. This saves time and effort, but also gives the web master/mistress a good understanding of the what's and why's. I particularly liked the discussion of an open source tool, where to obtain it, and how to use it to best advantage.If the book stopped there it would be invaluable to the audience I cited. However, it goes much further by delving into privacy, but from a technical aspect, and from a legal one. This is valuable to site owners who have an international presence (who doesn't?), and especially with regard to EU laws governing privacy. The technical elements of this part of the book are mainly about the use of cookies, which are treated in the same objective manner as other topics. You will clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses, as well as possible liabilities and privacy concerns.Another thing I liked about this book is the way the authors show how data can be transformed into useful business intelligence with respect to site effectiveness. The case studies of major sites illustrate the concepts and approaches well. The experience of the authors adds credibility; for example, one of the authors spent five years at eBay, and his insights in the case study of eBay are valuable to anyone involved in web analytics, privacy and usability.If you are among the audience I've cited above you will find this book to be filled with knowledge, insights and information - technical and business. I've used it as a reference during a consulting assignment for one of the largest corporations on the planet, as well as for my own w