Internet Marketing Tycoon

**ZeebleHosting** · 12-18-2004, 06:31 PM

Awstats or Webalizer?

**Republikin** · 12-18-2004, 07:46 PM

Both...They both parse the same log files.

**ZeebleHosting** · 12-18-2004, 07:59 PM

Yes, but when I like at my stats they both show different stats, awstats shows less visits and webazlizer more which follows the trend.

**Republikin** · 12-18-2004, 08:19 PM

Hmm. They are the same on my host, that is wierd.

**Anacrusis** · 12-18-2004, 09:37 PM

They both work off the same data, so both are just as accurate. The difference your seeing is probably due to when they refresh themselves. You see, they use the raw log files, just a copy of them. So if one has updated itself before the other one has, then you see a difference.

**dpakman91** · 12-19-2004, 02:20 AM

both my webalizer and awstats refresh at the same time, and they also show differnet statistics, with webalizer showing more.

**ZeebleHosting** · 12-19-2004, 06:59 AM

yeah thats the same problem as I am having. To be honest a feel more inclined to go with webalizer because thats where the stats are following the trend.

**Rincewind** · 12-19-2004, 11:02 AM

The term "visitor" is a subjective one. Your raw logs will just count hits, referes and IP addresses. The stats programs have to use some interpetation to decide whither this hit is just a refresh or page change form an existing visitor or if it's a different visitor or is it something else. So you should see differences form one program to another on how many visitors you have had.

**ZeebleHosting** · 12-19-2004, 03:09 PM

well the problem that I am having is that awstats is showing significantly less visits than previous months even thought that is going against the trend, where as webalizer is showing more hits than last month going with the trend but I don't know which one to believe.

**b0wser** · 12-19-2004, 05:40 PM

The difference will be coming from how they interpret the data.

**ZeebleHosting** · 12-19-2004, 06:56 PM

ok, well what Im getting at is which one do you think I should use?

**Rincewind** · 12-19-2004, 09:54 PM

Both. Neither are perfect. Each uses an element of judgement to create the reports. The more stats you have, the better you can gauge chagnes. Ultimately, the actual number of hits/visitors is not very importatn. Rather where they came from, what they do on your site, and where they end up are important. If you get those right, then you can have a very successfull site even with just a few visitors.

**ZeebleHosting** · 12-20-2004, 03:45 PM

so what are your tips for getting the most from visitors?

**nfzgrld** · 12-23-2004, 09:50 PM

I've noticed the same thing. I have to lean toward awstats though, but only becuase it has that cool, "updante now" feature that lets you go rebuild the stats you're reading right up to the minute. It doesn't count for much in the long run, but when you're tweaking stuff in the begining it's good to have accurate stats that are up to date. Also, webalizer just looks like "you know what" to me.

Nick