MIS 424 Professor Sandvig

Overview  Why Analytics?  Two major approaches:  Server logs  Google Analytics

Why Analytics  Analytics:  “the science of analysis”  Web analytics:  Analyzing how visitors use your web site

Why Analytics?  Is your site receiving traffic?  How do visitors get your site?  Search engine?  Which one?  Keywords used?  Which page do visitors land on?  Which pages did they view?  Link from other site?  Direct (bookmark, type url, etc.)

Why Analytics  More questions…  How long did visitors stay?  Which page did they leave from?  How did they navigate your site?  Did they buy anything?

Web Analytic Approaches  Two approaches: 1. Server Logs  Log of every request to the web server 2. Google Analytics  JavaScript embedded in every web page of site  Sends information to Google

Server Logs  Information about every request is logged  Time of request  Type of request (Get or Post)  Requesting domain  Requested page  Referring URL  KB data transferred  Status code  200 successful  404 page not found

Server Logs  Logs are very detailed  Image requests  CSS files  JavaScript files  favicon.ico  Search engine bot traffic  Items not found  Etc.

Server Logs Logs created by IIS

Server Logs

 Typically read with Log Analysis Software  Example: AWStatsAWStats

Server Logs  Advantages  Extremely detailed  See failed requests  Attempts to break into server  Disadvantages  Difficult to read  Software give statistical information  Little information about how visitors use site

Google Analytics  Add snippet of JavaScript to page  User’s browser sends info to Google  AJAX  Free  Very popular  Example:  Sandvig CBE web pages Sandvig CBE web pages  Google Analytics report Google Analytics

 Advantages  Free  Detailed information about site usage  Google AdWords integration  Disadvantage  Server Administrator  Only see successful page loads  No security breach info  Less detail

Summary  Typically use both methods  Google Analytics  Site design, usability  Search Engine Optimization  Server Logs  Security  404 errors  Search engine spider traffic