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Collecting data from YOUR website - costs time/money. Google Analytics is FREE and low cost time/money to install. It's true the data is there and we can get t

by taf2 12y ago

Collecting data from YOUR website - costs time/money. Google Analytics is FREE and low cost time/money to install. It's true the data is there and we can get to it... but this takes some foresight that having installed analytics does not require. e.g. a few months after the original apache logs have rotated - you realize it would be nice to know how many mobile safari users are coming to your site vs chrome android users... because you're trying to determine the impact of releasing that next feature that requires webrtc. You can add the analysis to future traffic and give it a few extra weeks but wouldn't it be nice to know right now? GA is nice because it lets you avoid the investment in time/money and you can still go back and look at historical data points you might not have imagined being useful before... I think in this way sampling is really not a big deal... if it is you're right - absolute right. collect the data points that require this level of accuracy yourself... but I don't think if you need that level of accuracy early on you're focusing on the right things...

gaius 12y ago
Collecting data from YOUR website - costs time/money. Google Analytics is FREE and low cost time/money to install It would appear to be just free enough to get you hooked, but to make it accurately give useful results, then it's very, very expensive, is the thrust of the article.
jlarocco 12y ago
Not sure I agree with that. There are, or used to be, plenty of tools for parsing the web logs, crunching the numbers, and spitting out pretty graphs. Again, maybe not as pretty as GA, and not as many bells and whistles, but good enough.
- taf2 12y ago
  but that can't be as easy as copy pasting a snippet of javascript code into your website?
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Oh wow, yeah, reading files in /var/log/httpd/ is soooo hard. I agree that not all people have the capability to work with this (read, front-end developers, Wordpress customizers, etc) still, I mean, even CPanel lets you download it from past months.
    - richardbrevig 12y ago
      cPanel has multiple log analyzers built in. So the user doesn't have to go through that work. If your site is on a shared host and it uses cPanel, just log into cPanel and you'll find them.
  - jlarocco 12y ago
    Actually, copy/pasting javascript would be MORE work. The hosting company I use, all I have to do is go to "http://mydomain.com/stats" http://mydomain.com/stats" and enter in the username and password I setup. No javascript changes necessary, because everything is in apache or nginx access logs, which have been around for just about ever. Kinda sad/funny that younger web devs don't know this stuff.

by taf2 12y ago

gaius 12y ago

Collecting data from YOUR website - costs time/money. Google Analytics is FREE and low cost time/money to install It would appear to be just free enough to get you hooked, but to make it accurately give useful results, then it's very, very expensive, is the thrust of the article.

jlarocco 12y ago

Not sure I agree with that. There are, or used to be, plenty of tools for parsing the web logs, crunching the numbers, and spitting out pretty graphs. Again, maybe not as pretty as GA, and not as many bells and whistles, but good enough.

taf2 12y ago
but that can't be as easy as copy pasting a snippet of javascript code into your website?
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Oh wow, yeah, reading files in /var/log/httpd/ is soooo hard. I agree that not all people have the capability to work with this (read, front-end developers, Wordpress customizers, etc) still, I mean, even CPanel lets you download it from past months.
  - richardbrevig 12y ago
    cPanel has multiple log analyzers built in. So the user doesn't have to go through that work. If your site is on a shared host and it uses cPanel, just log into cPanel and you'll find them.
- jlarocco 12y ago
  Actually, copy/pasting javascript would be MORE work. The hosting company I use, all I have to do is go to "http://mydomain.com/stats" http://mydomain.com/stats" and enter in the username and password I setup. No javascript changes necessary, because everything is in apache or nginx access logs, which have been around for just about ever. Kinda sad/funny that younger web devs don't know this stuff.