Tracking Users on a Website

[]|[ Mar']['in ]|[]

Marketing has requested that I *try* to figure out how to track users on our company website, apparently for marketing research, etc.

I've never done this before and I really don't know anything about it. The most common way to my knowledge is with cookies, however I've never played with them before. I know there's a way to do it with Flash as well, but I'm trying to stay away from flash on the site (K.I.S.S.).

Can anyone reccomend a good source to start learning about this?

Any help/tips are appreciated.

 

[faceless105]

for my idea you need somekinda programmngi language, i prefer php, and a database, most likly mysql (since those two are commonly together)

well once a person comes to your site they are assigned a session ID, each link they press will need a variable for where they are in the navigation well each time they hit a link a connection to the database will open and store some information such as....

SessionID - IP - Time/Date - Location (in the site)

It may sound a little complicated but it really has a lot to do with how your site is built. I did mine where all the navigation is done through a portal function so your technically never anywhere but the index page. but as such getting the location is incredibly easy for me since i need that location variable jsut to allow for navigation. now this method is going to be a little vague since we're pretty much identifying people by their sessionid and ip, if you want to only track logged in members then it might look a whole lot cleaner in the database.

SessionID - IP - Time/Date - Location (in the site) - User

and from there you'd need a quick interface that i would probably make it, when you click on a users name it'll show starting from most recent all the places they have gone with the date/time next to it.

 

[doh]

Use the server logs.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

the easist way is threw cookies, but our web guy uses
http://www.weblogexpert.com/
Lite, or Full Very nice peice of software
If you keep your logs correctly.

 

[]|[ Mar']['in ]|[]

I think only knowing the IP of the user would be fine. There's no actual login functionality of the website.

Mostly they just want to know what it is our customers are looking at so we can give them more.

I know some basic php/Mysql, I'm actually very interested in learning a lot more as far as setting up our website similar to how you have yours set up.

If you happen to have any reccomended reading material, let me know. It would be greatly appreciated.

Also, the info you provided was very helpful, thanks

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

I think only knowing the IP of the user would be fine. There's no actual login functionality of the website.

Mostly they just want to know what it is our customers are looking at so we can give them more.

I know some basic php/Mysql, I'm actually very interested in learning a lot more as far as setting up our website similar to how you have yours set up.

If you happen to have any reccomended reading material, let me know. It would be greatly appreciated.

Also, the info you provided was very helpful, thanks

Check out the link i gave you, best way to go

 

[faceless105]

well i'm all self taught with php and mysql, the book i reccomend is "sams teach yourself php mysql and apache" may be listed in a different order, but that covered so much, and then just become familiar with the php documentation of functions. what you want to do really isn't complicated, especially depending on your site.

 

[SonicDB]

I run a site that uses CPanel, and it has some stat programs within it. Here's some stats you can get from just one of the stat programs, there are a few others available. It runs on Php and MySQL: It's called Awstats. The site would have to reside within a CPanel directory.
======

When:
Monthly history
Days of month
Days of week
Hours
Who:
Countries
Full list
Hosts
Full list
Last visit
Unresolved IP Address
Authenticated users
Full list
Last visit
Robots/Spiders visitors
Full list
Last visit
Navigation:
Visits duration
Files type
Viewed
Full list
Entry
Exit
Operating Systems
Versions
Unknown
Browsers
Versions
Unknown
Referers:
Origin
Refering search engines
Refering sites
Search
Search Keyphrases
Search Keywords
Others:
Miscellaneous
HTTP Error codes
Pages not found
==============

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

I run a site that uses CPanel, and it has some stat programs within it. Here's some stats you can get from just one of the stat programs, there are a few others available. It runs on Php and MySQL: It's called Awstats. The site would have to reside within a CPanel directory.
======

Does just about the same thing as weblog