This Tip of the Week covers topics including:
- 1:07 – Developer Hub: Analytics (AWStats in cPanel)
- 3:18 – Notable Statistics
- 7:57 – Demo: Website Analytics Tool
- 28:24 – More Traffic Analytics Tools
This is a segment from Webinar Wednesday 173, recorded live on February 28, 2024.
AI-Generated Transcript – Please excuse any inaccuracies
Developer Hub: Analytics (AWStats in cPanel)
- AWStats provides a simple yet comprehensive snapshot of website traffic statistics.
- No need for code pasting or third-party tools.
- Offers essential traffic statistics:
- Number of visitors
- Page views
- Hits (bandwidth usage)
- Time and day of peak traffic
- Website referrers
- Geolocation of visitors
- Operating systems and browsers used
- Entry and exit pages
- Useful for identifying optimization opportunities.
Notable Statistics
- Peak hours: See what time of day and day of the week your website receives the most traffic.
- Traffic by country: Identify countries with a significant amount of traffic.
- Bandwidth usage: Identify individual IP addresses or hosts that consume a lot of bandwidth.
- High activity bots: Identify and block unfamiliar bots that scrape your website.
- File types: See the top file formats that consume the most bandwidth.
- Downloads: See which specific files are downloaded the most.
- Pages: See which specific web pages are most viewed by visitors.
- Entry and exit points: Identify the most common pages visitors come to and leave from.
- Operating systems and web browsers: See the most common operating systems and web browsers used by visitors.
- Referrers: See which search engines and individual websites direct the most traffic to your website.
Demo: Website Analytics Tool
- AWStats is a built-in analytics tool accessible through the CPanel | cPanel dashboard that provides basic Web traffic | website traffic and trend data.
- Key metrics include unique visitors, visits per visitor, page views, hits, and bandwidth usage.
- Historical data can be viewed by month, day, or hour, allowing for growth comparison and optimization strategies.
- AWStats provides insights into peak bandwidth usage, high hit days, peak visitor times, and the top countries visiting the website.
- Blocking countries with high bandwidth usage and low relevance can conserve bandwidth and improve website performance.
- The IP addresses section identifies individual visitors' IP addresses and their bandwidth usage, allowing specific IP addresses to be blocked to restrict unwanted traffic.
- Search engines and SEO tools should utilize bandwidth efficiently, while rogue spiders and bots can consume excessive bandwidth, leading to bandwidth limits being reached quickly.
- The robots file in the developer hub allows control over which spiders can crawl the website, and restoring default settings can block rogue spiders and bots.
- Visitor behavior metrics such as visits and duration provide insights into user engagement, and large images can be identified as potential bandwidth issues.
- Optimizing large images can resolve bandwidth problems, and the downloads section shows the top downloaded files and their associated bandwidth usage.
- Top pages visited provide valuable information about popular content on the website, and the "URL | Page URLs" section shows popular pages and allows filtering by keywords.
- The "Operating System and Browsers" section reveals visitor demographics based on operating systems and devices, which can inform marketing strategies.
- The "Referring Sites" section shows the sources of Web traffic | website traffic, and websites that refer traffic to a site can be identified for potential collaborations or link exchanges.
- The Q&A section allows users to ask questions and get more detailed explanations about the analytics.
More Traffic Analytics Tools
- CPanel | cPanel AWStats provides a basic overview of website traffic and trends.
- More robust and granular analytics tools are available, such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, Matomo (software) | Matomo, and Semrush | SEMrush.
- These tools offer more comprehensive insights into visitor behavior, page visits, and real-time reporting.
- They allow for data comparisons, searching for specific URL | page URLs, and scalability for larger websites.
- Google Analytics is a popular free option, while paid tools offer additional features and capabilities.
