Web servers produce huge log files that contain millions of
lines of visitor tracking information. Every time a person does anything on
your site, a line of data is added to the log file that records each and
every action they made. But the log files are too large and detailed to be
read directly. To get useful information out of your web log files, you need
Sawmill.
Sawmill processes your web log files and spits out a collection of
attractive tables and graphs that show you:
Who is coming to your site -- the domains they're coming from and
their login username (if you have logins on your site).
What are they looking at -- the sites, folders, and pages they're
visiting, the images they're viewing, the scripts they're accessing
and more.
When they're visiting -- which days got the most traffic, how your
traffic is growing over time, which weekdays and hours are peak, and
more.
What they're doing -- where they enter the site, which paths they
take through the site, where they leave, and more.
How long they stay -- which pages keep people the longest, and how
long they stay on the site before leaving.
Who brought them -- where they found the link that brought
them, whether it was a search engine (if it was, what they searched
for), or an advertisement, or a link on some other page.
What they're using to browse -- which operating system and web
browser they're using.
Which links are broken -- which pages they hit that aren't there
anymore (404's).
Using the information Sawmill gives you, you can track and improve the
effectiveness of your site, to bring more visitors and more sales (if you're
selling). Sawmill's information helps you answer these important questions:
What is bringing traffic to the site? Which ads are effective?
Which search engines are working? Which ads are not effective-- are you
getting good return for your investment? Which search engines don't know about
your site, or don't have you placed high enough to bring much traffic? Which
pages are linked to you, and which are not? What are people searching for in
the search engines-- should you change the text of your pages to get higher
placement?
Why are people leaving the site once they get there? Is there some
page which is driving them away? Could you improve it to keep them? Are they
leaving as soon as they get to the top page? If so, maybe the site needs to be
more attractive or interesting. Are they searching on your site for something,
not finding it, and leaving? Maybe you should add that to what you offer. Are
they getting to the pricing page and then leaving? Maybe the prices are too
high.
Which demographics buy? If you're selling something, which domains
place orders? Should you be focusing your marketing on that domain?
Is the site designed for easy navigation? Are the paths people are
taking reasonable? Are they getting lost, or getting in loops? Maybe the site
should be streamlined so people can get to the pages they want more easily.
What content works or doesn't? Are visitors looking a lot at pages
you don't spend much time working on, or ignoring the pages you thought were
the most important? Maybe you should reconsider your priorities, and work on
the content people want.
Do we have enough bandwidth, and a fast enough server? Sawmill can
show you the total hits and bandwidth usage of your sites, so you can decide
when it's time to upgrade your connection or buy a new server. By upgrading
your connection or server before it becomes a problem, you can keep
your visitors happy.
Sawmill's feature set makes it a good option for individuals looking to get
professional statistics for their server at a reasonable price. Here are some of
the features that match up particularly well with individuals' needs:
Special low-cost individual license gives you all the power of Sawmill at
a discount.
Simple installation and setup procedure gets you to your statistics in
just a few clicks.
Free remote installation! We will install Sawmill for you, if you're
installing it on an Internet-connected system (for instance, if you're
installing it as a CGI program on your web server).
Support for multiple profiles, one for each web site you run. You
can keep your statistics separate, or combine them into a single report.
Built-in high-speed database with incremental updates (to roll one day's
log into the database) and expiration (to roll old data out of the database,
if you want) features, so the latest statistics are always at your fingertips.
Built-in scheduler to automate database updates, rebuilds, expiration, and
more.
Simple and attractive statistics interface presents what you need to know
in a streamlined and easy-to-understand format, but has incredible power under
the hood for advanced users.
Sawmill's statistics are superior to what the competition
offers in their level of detail. Other tools will process log data and
generate a set of static reports. If you want to see something that's not in
the reports they choose, you're out of luck-- you have to reconfigure and
reprocess all the data to get what you want, if you can get it at all.
Sawmill's database contains a staggering amount of information, and its
reports are live, so you can zoom in on things that interest you. All
the details are there in the database, and you can get at them by navigating
the statistics. To give a few examples:
The Problem:
You see in the statistics that a bunch of hits
came from Spain yesterday. Want to know what they were looking at?
The Sawmill Solution:
No problem! Just click Spain to zoom in on Spain hits,
switch to the "Pages" report, and voila -- you see
all the pages hit by people from Spain, in two clicks.
Competitions Solution:
Big problem! The competition can't do that; they'll
show you how many hits you got from Spain, or how many people hit each page,
but they can't tell you this kind of detailed information without reprocessing
the logs with a special set of filters. Sawmill does this sort of cross-referencing
instantaneously and on-the-fly, so you don't have you spend your time and
energy reconfiguring every time you want specialized information. Even more
importantly, your customers will be able to get this kind of information
without your help, which means less tech support, and lower costs.
The Problem:
You're trying to see if a particular page got
a hit yesterday. The statistics show the top twenty pages, but you want
to see all the pages; the page you're looking for got only one hit,
or none, so it'll be way down in the ranking.
The Sawmill Solution:
No problem! Just chose "show all rows"
from the menu above the table, and the table will expand to show all the pages that ever got any
hits, even if there are 500,000 of them.
Competitions Solution:
Big problem! It's back to reconfigure again;
the competition shows the top ten, twenty, or maybe hundred, but if what
you want isn't there (or if you want fewer rows than you see there), you
have to go back and mess with the configuration options. Sawmill lets you
do this sort of thing on the fly, using links, menus, and buttons that are
conveniently placed right there with the statistics you're looking at.
The Problem:
You want to see which paths visitors took through
the site, click-by-click. At each page along the way you want to see which
visitors left, and where the other ones went next.
The Sawmill Solution:
No problem! Sawmill's "session paths"
report lets you see the complete click-by-click details of every
visit. Starting with the entry pages, you can click to expand any part of
the data, to see whatever you need to see about your visitors and the paths
they took.
Competitions Solution:
Big problem! The best the competition can do
is show you the "top paths," the ten or twenty complete paths
that were most often taken. Sawmill shows you that, and infinitely more.
Looking at the "paths through the site" view, you can see the
broad patterns of your traffic flow in ways that a static "top paths"
report can't touch.
The Problem:
You want to see a graph of the traffic of hits
for last November. No, make that the bandwidth for November. Actually let's
see just November 16th. Wow, look at that spike around 3pm; where did all
those hits come from?
The Sawmill Solution:
No problem! Sawmill can do all this and much
more. This is how you'll think when you use Sawmill. Look at the November
hits graph, wonder about the bandwidth; choose "bandwidth bar graph"
from the menu and bam! You've got another graph there showing bandwidth
where there used to be just a hits graph. See a lot of hits on the 16th?
Click the November 16 bar in the graph and the graph changes to show only
traffic on November 16, hour-by-hour. Wondering where that spike came from
on some particular hour? Three clicks and you can see the traffic for that
hour only, broken down by domain, so you can see who it was. Or broken down
by page, so you can see what they looked at. Or broken down by referring
URL or domain, so you can see which ad, search engine, or web page brought
you all that traffic! Your customers will love the flexibility of
Sawmill.
Competitions Solution:
Big problem! Forget it. The competition can't
do anything like that. The static reports they give you are the beginning
and the end of your statistics; you can't zoom in arbitrarily, cross-reference,
change the type of data being displayed, or show/hide graphs and data columns.
Sawmill lets you do all that and more.
You get the idea. Sawmill's statistics are much more powerful than the statistics
other tools provide, because the reports are live rather than static.
Not only will your customers appreciate the extra power, they won't need
your help to do all the reconfiguration mentioned above, since they'll be
able to get what they want directly from the Sawmill statistics. Less assistance
means less tech support, which saves you money.
Even if you decide to go with static reports (Sawmill can generate static
reports if you prefer), Sawmill is still an excellent choice. It provides
features for generating the HTML reports to disk, so you can publish them
with any web server, and you can also configure Sawmill to send the HTML
reports to your customers by email at regular intervals.
Sawmill's reports are attractive and well-organized; its
graphs are designed to be easy to read. Why use
ugly statistics when you can use Sawmill?
Most ISPs, if they provide statistics at all, give you ugly ones, or static
statistics reports, or both. You don't need to use the lame statistics your ISP
gives you -- you can make your own with Sawmill (or better yet, point your ISP to
the ISP page and
ask them to use Sawmill instead). Choose the log
analysis tool that gives you real detail in their statistics. Choose Sawmill!
Who is coming to your site -- the domains they're coming from and
their login username (if you have logins on your site).
