Re: Identifying Unique Website Visitors
I am fairly certain that Analog can be trained to understand *any* log file format, including custom ones, like you proposed. I think Analog is the best or one of the best analyzers out there. The amount of customization and detail is amazing. +---+ |-=I T ' S P R I N C I P L E T H A T C O U N T S=- | |=- -=ALAN KEYES FOR PRESIDENT=- -=| | Balanced Budgets Personal Freedoms Morality Lower Tax | |=-- http://www.Keyes2000.com. --=| ++
Identifying Unique Website Visitors
One of our clients has requested that they be able to track unique visitors to their website. The only method I know of is using cookies (with or without login). I have investigated mod_usertrack from Apache and it seems to fit the bill. I modified the logfile so that the cookie is logged where the "authenticated user" value is normally logged. I have also tried logging with the normal log + cookie value and also a dedicated cookie log. My idea is to implement a cookie authentication system where their email address is assigned to a cookie called username. I would also have Apache assign a "username" cookie. So if a person authenticates themselves their cookie will forever remain their email address ... if not it would be a the Apache assigned value. My question is what log analysis software will let them make use of this cookie value to actually get them this information in a human readable form. I'd prefer (as would the client) to get a drop-in solution. Any suggestions as to better ways of doing this would be greatly appreciated as well. Thanks, Fraser
