The Tlog - a technology blog

(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

“”Dot fives” weren’t enough, you had to make a “dot two”?”, you ask? Yup. Since this one fits between an integer and a “dot five”…

You know what “logs” are, right? No, not those things made of wood. They’re one or more files (text files, if the server is decent :)) which have all accesses to your site (or blog, or web server… depends on the configuration). If you have your own web server (either at home, or at an ISP), you have logs.

If you use some kind of remote account (that is, the server isn’t yours, but you have an account in it, where you install your files), you may have access to log files (if you access the server by ssh (Secure Shell)). But it may be something simpler, like many ISPs make available for free: a server that you access by FTP, and then you put your files there, and the ISP takes care of the rest. You probably won’t have access to the log files in that scenario.

And, of course, you won’t have any log files if you use something like Blogger or LiveJournal.

But what you want, here, isn’t really the log files, it’s what you can do with them: statistics! And you can have those even without the log files, by using services like SiteMeter, which give you some HTML code to put in your site, and then you can access your statistics by going to their site.

If you do have access to your logs, however, I recommend AWStats. If there are better (free, open source) ones, feel free to tell me about them.

Statistics can give you lots of useful data, such as:

• where your visitors are from (country, ISP, etc.)
• which operating systems, browsers, screen resolutions, plugins, etc. they use
• which page they enter your site through (many people don’t arrive directly at your front page, but at a particular article, because that’s what was linked where they came from, or what they searched for in a search engine)
• which page was the last they browsed to in your site
• what word or phrase did they search for in a search engine, which made they come to your site
• where they came from - that is, the referrer, the page that linked to one of yours, and in which link they clicked on that link

All of those are important (and I may write about the importance of some of them later), but the most important is the last one. It tells, mainly, who is linking to you.

Why is that so important? Well, among other things:

• you get to know who finds what you write interesting, and why, and what, exactly, do people find interesting
• if it’s a blog or any other kind of community site with comments, maybe they’re talking about something you wrote… don’t you want to be a part of that talk?
• if a large number of people is coming from a particular place, that may give you some inspiration about what to write next, or where to promote your blog
• and now for the less pleasant part: it may also let you know about someone who steals your content. They usually make mistakes, such as not altering some internal links. I spotted one some time ago in this way.

Add to:

Related posts:

1. Chitika eMiniMalls: using search queries for the ads
2. Blogging tips :10.3: Who links to you?
3. ProBlogger: the importance of checking your blog’s stats
4. Blogging tips #3.5: Be quick or be dead
5. Blogging tips #4: Making your blog search engine-friendly