Prev: ImageResize Off by 1px
Next: Multiple CFIF's
From: jeby on 5 Apr 2008 19:11
In the past I have been using sites such as sitemeter.com and other free
statistics sites to help me monitor site usage. I am now working on a way to
do this all via coldfusion and some code that is processed at the end of each
request. My reason for wanting to do this in coldfusion is that I can then
track the values of a couple of important variables, plus use the information
to directly impact my site by referencing the most popular information and
such. I am looking for peoples opinions and suggestions on this.

First of all, using free solutions such as the one I mentioned earlier does
not have any performance effects on my application as it is not running no my
server. Does anyone think that I should be concerned with causing performance
issues by doing this on my server via coldfusion? Or are there things I should
try to avoid to reduce this issue. For the most part, most of my sites will
not be getting the traffic levels that I think it would take for this to cause
issues with performance, but I would like to plan ahead for this just incase.

Secondly, I am concerned about getting false results do to search engine bots.
Using the free sites this is not an issue as most of them include the image
(counter)_via a javascript call. Coldfusion is going to see their request as
it would any other request. Does anyone know of a way I can distinguish a bot
vs a human in Coldfusion? I am expecting this to be the hardest part.

Last of all, does anyone have any good resources on this matter that they
would be willing to share? I have found a couple via google searches, but seem
to be having trouble finding valuable information.

Thanks for everyones help. It will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

From: Grizzly9279 on 5 Apr 2008 21:47
It sounds like you'd be much better off if you invested in a real web analytics
service.

See Google Analytics:
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Or perhaps Omniture:
http://www.omniture.com/

I know some (if not all) of these services allow you to track custom/dynamic
variables (related to conversion trackng, etc)

You could do it yourself in ColdFusion, but it sounds like you already have a
good sense of the caveats. (Performance, false positives w/ bots, etc) Odds
are you're going to end up spending a ton of time trying to "roll your own" on
this, and as we all know, time is money. If it were me, I'd save myself the
time and frustration and put my trust into a well established analytics
provider, even if it cost me a few bucks.

My two cents...


 | 
Pages: 1
Prev: ImageResize Off by 1px
Next: Multiple CFIF's