[geeks] RANT (ftp)

[velociraptor]

On 10/25/06, Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
> Just curious, what would you rather do than process log files to get
> the information?
[...]
> I *HATE* using URLs and redirection to generate stats.

Show me a web site that is only using the "pure" logs and I'll show
you a geek's web site.  I've never seen a commercial or public web
site that is not doing some kind of URLs, redirection, session id's,
hidden pixel tracking or some such in a vain attempt to lend credence
to their stats.

I personally don't condone analyzing logs the way they generally are
analyzed because the logs are so full of garbage.  I mean, have you
looked the IPs and *verified* just how much of the traffic is real
(versus script kiddies or spiders)?  Analytics programs are black
boxes, who knows what they are doing?  Pulling the logs over manually
and processing them versus having Urchin pull them over and analyze
them showed discrepancies.

Maybe it was just the oddball way $ork-1's web site traffic played
out, our peak time was around 9-10am on week days, with a slow decline
over the course of the day.  Our peak day was usually Monday (weekend
advertisement exposure "bounce") with a slow decline over the course
of the week; Tues/Weds would be just slightly lower than Mon.  Long
weekends would lower traffic for Mon and/or Tues consistent with
Sat/Sun.  The only exceptions would be Thanksgiving, and Christmas -
New Year's.  The days after Christmas were annual peaks (product
activation after gifts were received).

=Nadine=