As more organizations view the Web as an integral part of their operations and external communications, interest in the measurement and evaluation of Web site usage is increasing. Server logs can be used to glean a certain amount of quantitative usage information. Such analysis also provides some technical information regarding server load, unusual activity, or unsuccessful requests, and can assist in marketing and site development and management activities. Assessing Web site use in a meaningful manner is not a trivial undertaking. It is essential to begin by determining the questions on usage that must be answered, then to choose one or more appropriate evaluation mechanisms to provide meaningful answers.
Log analysis is only one of several such mechanisms.
Benchmarks against which to compare or evaluate use figures makes them more meaningful. This Network Notes focuses on log file analysis as one quantitative research method for usage analysis, providing an overview of what can and can not be mined from the data, and the software tools that are currently available to support log analysis. Every communication between a client browser and a Web server results in an entry in the server's log recording the transaction. A busy Web site, such as that of the National Library of Canada, generates hundreds or thousands of log entries per hour and compiles them in a log file. Most widely employed are the common log file format and the combined or extended log file format.