Comparison on Log File Analysis and Page Tagging

After reading my previous post about ‘Why Web Analytics is Important for your Website’, you may have interested in learning about How to start Web Analytics for your site? what all methods are there available in the industry? Etc… There are two popular way of doing Web Analytics for your site, one is Log File Analysis and the later is Page Tagging. There are advantages and disadvantages for both these ways, so I thought of talking a little about the Pros and Cons of Log File Analysis and Page Tagging. This may help you out to choose which one to go for, as a better fit to your Website.

What are Log File Analysis and Page Tagging?

• Log File Analysis: You know what Log Files are from my previous post, but for the new visitors, these are files in your Server which records all the activities happening inside your Web Server. Log File Analysis includes, downloading the Log Files from the Web Server and loading it into a Log File Analyzer which render the Log File content and gives you Interactive reports about your visitors for that period of time. There are numerous log file analyzers that convert log file data into user-friendly charts and graphs. A good analyzer is generally considered an essential tool in SEO because it can show search engine statistics such as the number of visitors received from each search engine, the keywords each visitors used to find the site, visits by search engine spiders etc.
• Page Tagging: Sometimes knows as ‘client side tagging’, Page Tagging uses a small snippet of code (normally JavaScript) that you add to each of your web pages that you wish to monitor. When a visitor opens the web page the embedded code updates Who is On with the visitor information directly. In addition, page-tagging solutions are often managed by a third party. Therefore, in order to be able to track return visitors they have to rely on third-party cookies from the client.

Pros and Cons of Log File Analysis:

• Advantages:

1. Secure: In Log File Analysis you are storing the data in your Local, and not relying on any Third-party resources – so your information is secured with you.
2. Bots Tracking: You can track the Bots visit in your site and this analysis has an important role in Search Engine Optimization.
3. Standard Format: Most of the Server follows the same format for Server Logs and thus most of the Log File Analyzers can render it easily and without any bug.
4. Cheaper: For Small | Medium size websites, it’s cheap and if you already have an IT Infrastructure in house, this is a cheaper method even for the Larger Websites also.
5. Enhanced Reporting: With the correct expertise in-house, you can track whatever data related to your websites and this can be a vital part of your website promotion.
6. File Tracking: You can track views of PDFs and SWFs and measure downloads of files (which may be necessary for conversion analysis), Bandwidth usage and analysis.
7. Track non-JS browsers: This is an added advantage over page tagging; Log File Analysis gives you details even about the visitors who don’t have JS enabled in their browsers.

• Disadvantages:

1. Require Experts: For Log File analysis, you have to hire the experts to handle all the technical tasks; it’s a little complex thing for the non-technical ones.
2. Storing Management: For high traffic sites the Log files can be too large, so the storage and management of the Log files in-house needs some investments at the installation time.
3. Complexity: This method is a little complex in nature, at the beginning, the settings and filtering of unwanted visits are some tedious technical tasks inside this.

Pros and Cons of Page Tagging:

• Advantages:

1. Accurate Visitor Tracking: Even if the pages are widely cached, each unique visits will be tracked in, which may be missing in your Server Logs.
2. External Transaction Tracking: If you are using any External Transaction services for your e-commerce site, if the third-party provider allows you to modify the user pages, you can easily place the JS code inside and track the Conversions. Most payment gateways allow merchants to modify the templates in some way or another.
3. Track Returning Visitors: Page Tagging will give you the details about the returning visitors to the site and how they originally found the page, and measure latent conversions. This means that if a user makes a purchase on subsequent visit, you can know that they came from a particular campaign or by using a specific search term on a search engine.

• Disadvantages:

1. Non-JavaScript Browsers: Even though there are a very less % of current Internet Users comes in this category, but there are some who disabled JS in their Browser. Such visits won’t get tracked in this Page Tagging method.
2. Not Secure: Mostly you have to depend on a third party tool to give you the details, so your online information is avail to them also.
3. Complexity of Inserting JS Code: If your site is a large one and having different templates inside, there will be a time consuming issue to put the JS Code inside each and every pages you want to track.

A Word from the Author:

Hope you all get some idea about both of the methods. There are loads of Services providing for each of these methods and again the question may arise, which Service you have to go for. There are free services – one good example is Google Analytics and is following Page Tagging Method – and Paid Services also – like ClickTracks or WebTrends, both are high configured and Top Log Analyzer Tools in the Industry – available in the industry. So depending on your needs you can go with either of the services. I will be trying collect some useful information on this so that you can easily choose the right service for your websites.