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ADS ONLINE - ISSUE 15 - Making History - ISSN 1368-0552 | Front Page | Contents

Analysis of access statistics

In response to requests from users and depositors, we have recently acquired a piece of software with which we can analyse access statistics. Sawmill uses an attractive web interface to display and interrogate the cumbersome log files produced by our web server. The user can choose to view the statistics in any number of ways, clicking on sections of interest to delve deeper into the data or placing filters so that only particular sections of the data are analysed at any one time. We have found that Sawmill can effectively answer questions about our web statistics that are not easily worked out from the raw data or quarterly reports that we produce with Analog.

Web traffic over time statistics produced by Sawmill

Web traffic over time statistics produced by Sawmill

One advantage that Sawmill has over Analog for analysing statistics is that we can now filter and view our statistics by individual page or directory. As each of our project archives and collections are stored in separate directories within the website, traffic for these directories can be analysed independently. If, for example, we wanted to learn more about users and usage of the Danebury Hillfort project archive, Sawmill can create numerous reports relating to this resource - a chart of web traffic over time, a list of the domains/countries users are coming from or the path they took through our website to reach this archive, to name but a few.

If you are interested in commissioning a monitoring report on data that you have deposited then please contact Catherine Hardman, Collections Development Manager csh3@york.ac.uk

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