Difference between Webalizer and Awstats?

[snowcreative]

I'm seeing a weird thing on one of my client's websites. We just launched a website at the beginning of May, and they wanted to find out how many times a PDF was viewed. It's in the "documents" folder. When I look at either Webalizer or Analog, they both say the file has been accessed 863 times. But Awstats says the same file has been accessed only 111 times! That's quite a difference. Is Awstats leaving out a lot of access info for some reason??? Or is it looking at data in such a way that it's actually more accurate?

[Vin DSL]

All these proggies have their strengths and weaknesses...

I would be inclined to believe the AWSTATS figure more than the others, because it's PROBABLY tracking humans, not bots and so forth.

Some ppl don't like it when you offer unsolicited recommendations, but this is what I suggest...

Forget those trackers and use Google Analytics instead:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

It's THE best tracker out there!

[snowcreative]

I like Google Analytics, but the Problem is, if this client sends out an email with a direct link to this PDF they want to track, Google Analytics won't capture that, right?

[Ron]

Right.

[Vin DSL]

I like Google Analytics, but the Problem is, if this client sends out an email with a direct link to this PDF they want to track, Google Analytics won't capture that, right?

Can't say for sure... haven't personally tried it, but...

AFAIK, Analytics WILL track direct links in email campaigns.

http://www.google.com/support/google...y?answer=55518 (Analytics Help - Tracking Tags)

And/or you can use a conversion add-on, like...

http://www.email247.biz/resources/go...tegration.aspx (LeadPro Email Marketing integration)