Your Web server keeps a log of requests it answers. Use the log, and learn from it. There are many tools on the market to help analyze the logs, or you can dump them into a database or spreadsheet, or you can write your own tools-the format of most server log files isn t very complicated. A sample log, using the widely-used Common Log Format, is shown in Figure 1. There are many tools on the market to help analyze the logs, or you can dump them into a database or spreadsheet, or you can write your own tools-the format of most server log files isn t very complicated.
Some servers provide ways to track sessions as a customer clicks from page to the next.
Analyzing sessions can be more difficult than looking at the raw statistics of hit counts, but you can learn a great deal from them. O ne of the most fascinating things about the net is how hard people are often willing to work to find information about a product, service, or anything else they re interested in. So it s especially valuable for you to provide information to customers, and to make it easy for them to find things. A good source for ideas is your telephone support team and the central phone operators. Part of providing information is making it accessible, so provide navigation tools.