Well, there are two ways to look at this. If you use IP addresses you may undercount because of proxying, and NAT. But, if you use cookies, you do the same for all the users who refuse cookies. A number of coporate proxy servers and firewalls will also block cookies. Tracking by IP address actually could inflate the count of unique users since many proxy servers open multiple connections from different IP addresses (AOL does this), so a single user on your site might connect from a dozen or more separate IP addresses. If you write your own analyzer, another thing to watch out for is search engine spiders. For a low traffic, but fairly large site a search engine robot can really inflate your page views. You'll know something is wrong when you see a period with 10,000 page views and just 50 unique users. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Evan Lavidor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 3:19 PM Subject: RE: (OT) IIS Web Logs, how to parse and calculate unique visitors > We use WebTrends to parse our logs and run pretty reports. I think it was a > "why reinvent the wheel" issue. > > Regarding unique visitors, most off-the-shelf programs I've seen will > recommend that you track users by cookie, not by IP. That gives you a much > more accurate count of unique visitors, and avoids the AOL, NAT, Proxy > problems. > > Evan > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Eric Dawson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 3:54 PM > > To: CF-Talk > > Subject: (OT) IIS Web Logs, how to parse and calculate unique visitors > > > > > > (OT) IIS Web Logs, how to parse and calculate unique visitors > > > > Has anyone created a web log analyzer? How do you determine > > unique visitors > > over a period of time? Given things like AOL rotating IP client > > addresses, > > and proxy servers? > > > > Curious. > > Eric ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
