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interview in netguide magazine
This side-bar appeared in the October 1996 issue of NetGuide
Magazine in an article by Rick Stout titled Tracking Down
Your Web Site Traffic. Rick had just written the book
Web Site Stats: Tracking Hits and Analyzing Traffic
for which I provided the technical edit.
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log file follies
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he marketing hype surrounding log analysis software and services could
have you believing that tracking Web traffic accurately is as easy as
installing some software and running your reports. Far too manypeople
are under the impression that Web server log files are accurate, says
Morgan Davis, director of operations for CTS Network Services an
independent Internet provider in San Diego.
CTS' Davis tells clients not to
treat log files as gospel.
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If the log files aren't consistently reliable, then reports produced
by them can't be either. "It's not so much a problem with servers as
it is with browsers and the inconsistent ways they query Web servers,"
Davis says. "Different browsers can have completely different effects
on a server logging an identical transfer."
Still, different servers can come up with different log entries for
the same events, he adds. But there are even bigger problems: The
actions of caching proxy servers are largely immeasurable. Interrupted
transfers are difficult to track reliably. And even different settings
in a browsers configuration options affect servers' logging
traffic. "It's like voodoo, and you can hardly make sense of it all
even when you understand all of these variables," Davis says.
Davis is cautious about overcoming the shortcomings of server-logging
with new HTTP versions, Web servers, and technologies. "Are we asking
for more demographic information as part of basic server-logging
practices?
Or are we talking about how the current data is being recorded and
utilized?" he asks. "The former is a controversial subject." In fact,
some people would like to enist the help of browser developers to
require users to enter more information about themselves into their
browsers' configuration screens. But is this something users should be
forced to do?
While it can be trying to work through the inconsistencies, there's a
wealth of untapped data in existing server log files, Davis
says. Still, "You just can't use your log files as an absolute measure
of the activity at your site," he notes.
So why don't we have better tools for logging? According to Davis, the
people designing Web servers are primarily concerned with performance
and features. "It's the age-old problem of the guy with the tie can't
understand the guy in the lab, and the guy in the lab doesn't care,"
Davis says.
— Rick Stout
PHOTO © JIM COIT/BLACK STAR
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